The Role Of The Distributor

Distribution Plan
Distribution is the highly competitive business of launching and sustaining films in the market place. It's vital to the health of the film industry as a whole. The distributor's challenge is to bring each movie to market, starting from scratch (except for a sequel) and realising it's potential. A distribution plan is something that a distributor must make for every film to make sure it is successful and what the target audience want and expect. It is the distributor's role to decide where, when and how the movie is released. They have to take into account statistical research, commercial experience and market research and knowledge. This is all taken into account when producing the distribution plan and all these things contribute to making a successful plan.

When the distributors prepare their budget they have to make a rough guess as to how much the movie will make. Every team of people working on a movie i.e. Promotion, advertising and marketing team, need to keep a close watch on the costs of everything and make sure they will make a profit. 

The distributor must focus on the audience and make a detailed analysis of their tastes and opinions. This must include age group and gender, lifestyle, media consumption and their use of social networks. Audience profiling must be carried out so that the distributor knows more about its target audience. They can find out how the audience normally receive information about films and what form of media is most commonly used. This will then let the distributor know where and how to launch the film in order to get it successfully to it's audience. 

It has to be kept in mind however that audience's tastes can change dramatically and vary with the times. It must be monitered the film's target audiences and keep track of what they want to see. This will also help with promoting and marketing the movie, and test screening is also a good way of getting audience feedback before release through questionnaires given to the audience afterward the movie.

"It is clear to me that films only achieve their extraordinary potential when they are able to reach global audiences, week in. Week out." - Lord Richard Attenborough CBE - Taken from the 'Film Distributors Association'.

The film industry is a very competitive one, which is why the release date is so important, as the film companies need to make sure they do not release the same sort of movie at the same time of year. There must be space in the market for a film to be successful. The time of year it is released is also important in regrards to school holidays around the world, which obvioulsy directly relates to the age group targeted.

In terms of the success and profit of a film, sometimes there is already a lot of hype about the release of a movie due to interviews with the actors and TV screenings. This creates an identity for the film making the target audience feel as if they already know a lot about the movie and the actors within it.


Marketing And Advertising Plan
Marketing is in place in order to spread awareness and market the film to arouse interest.
The distributor of the film must participate in competing against their rival distributors as well as competing against the audience's interests in leisure activities in and out of the home. 

Posters and billboards are a common way of promoting the film, as it shows the title, the film's stars, the genre, the credits and sometimes a tag line. Months before the release of the film, a teaser poster can be created to make the audience aware that a film is coming soon. Distributors may also use displays in cinema foyers such as a cardboard standees, mini-posters, banners, and window clings. 
Trailers can be used very effectively by marketing teams. Distributors have to produce a trailer and will be given a range of content from the film to play with. The trailer includes short clips from the film. Trailers are the most cost-effective marketing technique and are proven to be very effective.
Most films will have an official website where they will show the film trailer, production information, stills from the movie and much more. The online network will help to build awareness of the new film before it is released and will also offer information about the film in order to 'tease' the audience into wanting more. 


Publicity
Arranging interviews with some of the film's cast is one of the distributors' publicity team's job. Also, many channels now on TV shows in-depth entertainment news containing lots about up-coming movies. The publicists will arrange press kits for the journalists where they share the names of the cast and crew members where they will give facts about the movie and it's production and also a synopsis of it. 

There are screenings for national critics which are shown on the Monday and Tuesday before the film is fully released to its audience. The critics will then make reviews about the film and this will then publicise and promote the film, but this isn't always a positive thing for the movie if the review portrays the film in a negative manner.

Film sets will normally be restricted from the public, however distributors sometimes have the chance to visit the set alongside journalists, exhibitors or marketing partners. 

Promotions
The distributor also has the job of lining up promotional partnerships.
These tie-ins create displays for the film in places where the conventional type of advertising does not reach, for instance, shops and restaurants.

They also create competitions in order to get the target audiences to interact with the movie and the different sections of it, for instance, containing some of the actors from the film in the competition.

Another marketing strategy is film festivals which attract a wide audience. These can happen world wide and are attended by film buyers, sales teams and journalists.