The Lego Movie: Marketing

Monday 12th March 2018

The Lego Movie: Marketing

L.O. explore marketing & promotion of The Lego Movie; to link the methods to the target audience.

• Newspaper
• Magazine (appearances on covers, adverts, articles)
• TV adverts
• Trailers (teaser, theatrical)
• Posters
• Advert on side of buses, taxis and trains
• Social media (adverts, accounts)
• YouTube advertising 
• Pop up ads
• Billboards
• Website 
• Computer games
• CD or soundtrack 
• Collar with other brands

Synergy 

- The simultaneous release of different products to boost both.

Lego Movie Merch

• Clothing
• 16 Collectible Mini Figures
• Bags
• Lego Movie Video Game
• Sticker and Activity books
• School Supplies (lunch boxes, stationary, etc)
• 17 Lego World Sets
• Happy Meals at McDonalds

Other ways The Lego Movie was promoted - 

• Website - trailers, short movies, a website enabled fans to make Lego versions of themselves.
• Events - film premier (14th February 2014), free accessory packs available in store, video game released on 4th February, video game released on Feb 4th.
• Posters - ⇾, in every week in January a new character poster was released
• Links with global partners/ brands - On Feb 7 McDonalds released 3D collectible toys in Happy Meals.

Horizontal and Vertical Integration - 

Q - The advantages for a parent company of each type of ownership is that all the profits will go to them because they won't have to share the profits with other companies. It also means you don't have to outsource work.


The Guardian

• The Lego Movie's building blocks of success is that the content is a gripping adventure for kids, but also fun for adults to watch. As Lego is a product aimed at kids, they had to appeal to all ages as parents are the ones who will be paying and taking their kids to the cinema, so the movie is a great adventure for kids, but also really fun for adults.
• What they did right - The Lego Movie is very appealing to children the limit of your imagination is endless, but it also appeals to adults because it shows the endless creativity, and if parents like the movie, they are more likely to buy other Lego products.
• The Lego Movie has laid foundations for future success by making a sequel to the movie because the first one did so well. When the children who have watched The Lego Movie grow up, they may feel nostalgic and show the movie to other children, and therefore starting the cycle again.

Zesty

• The Lego Movie 'has heart' because when people go to the cinema, they want to laugh, cry, etc, and The Lego Movie does all of these things to people by including an emotive storyline that explores the meaning of love, creativity, relationship and humanity.
• The Lego Movie is all about 'you' because the core themes of the movie is those who create and those who build (those who lead, and those who follow) and the difference between those who choose to be themselves or a part of something bigger. We constantly question which one of these 2 categories we fit into - and the underlying discourse within The Lego Movie generate questions we ask not only about the characters and storyline, but about ourselves. The result is a resonance that drills the brand into a deep level of our psyche that’s rarely visited by commercial content.
• The Lego Movie knows it's audience as it has a very clear idea of who they are talking to, as it bids to increase it's standings among kids (the players), parents (the buyers), and other adults (the nostalgics). Film critics laud this movie’s ability to offer ‘something for everyone’, with a healthy dose of slapstick for the kids, cultural savvy for the teens, and hilarious social commentary for the grown-ups. 

Write 300 words explaining how the marketing of The LEGO Movie exploits a range of platforms - print, film, e-media - to construct an effective marketing campaign.

The LEGO Movie constructs an effective marketing campaign by exploiting the movie onto different platforms like print, film and e-media.

The movie is marketed using print to help create an effective marketing campaign. Before the movie’s release, 6 movie posters were created to help market the film. These posters had pictures of the LEGO Movie characters, including their names and the people who voice them. These posters were included in newspapers, magazines and out and about to help market the film. This helps construct a good marketing campaign because it helps get the attention of the people who want to watch the film. It targets kids because they get an image of what characters will be in the movie. The posters also target adults by putting the actors/actress names on the posters, as the adults may see the name of an actor/actress they like and want to see their part in The LEGO Movie.

The movie also uses film to construct a marketing campaign. The LEGO Movie had trailers that were shown to make people aware that the movie was coming out. Before films shown in cinemas, a theatrical trailer would be shown. This is effective because it targets movie-goers who may be interested in seeing The LEGO Movie. Teaser trailers were also shown in the adverts of family programmes, which would draw families (the main target audience) into watching the film.

Another way The LEGO Movie was marketed was by using e-media. E-media is a way to advertise something online, and this is one of the ways The LEGO Movie was advertised. Adverts for the movie would have been placed on the sides of social media, and adverts for the movie may have been placed in YouTube videos. This is effective because young cinema-goers use social media, and these are the people who are likely to go to the cinema and watch the film.

(315 words).