Generating interest for the Hunger Games – the need to make a profit
Marketing techniques used by Lionsgate
Lionsgate used all the usual old-media tricks — giving away 80,000 posters, securing almost 50 magazine cover stories, advertising on 3,000 billboards and bus shelters.
More unusually they also had a year-long digital effort built around the content platforms cherished by young audiences: near-constant use of Facebook and Twitter, a YouTube channel, a Tumblr blog, iPhone games and live Yahoo streaming from the premiere.
Lionsgate generated this high level of interest with a marketing staff of 21 people working with a relatively tiny budget of about $45 million. Bigger studios routinely spend $100 million marketing major releases, and have worldwide marketing and publicity staffs of over 100 people. The studio has been able to spend so little largely because Mr. Palen has relied on inexpensive digital initiatives to whip up excitement.
One important online component involved a sweepstakes to bring five fans to the movie’s North Carolina set. Notably, Lionsgate invited no reporters: The studio did not want consumers thinking this was another instance of Hollywood trying to force-feed them a movie through professional filters. “People used to be O.K. with studios telling them what to like,” Ms. DePalma said. “Not anymore. Now it’s, ‘You don’t tell us, we tell you.’ ”
