The Lego Movie: Poster Campaign

L/O: to explain the effectiveness of the campaign; to analyse using Uses & Gratification theory

The Lego Movies poster appeals to its target audience in many ways, the kid friendly art style and saturated colour palette will help draw in young children, the young cinema go-ers will see the pop-culture references such as Batman, Wonder-woman and green lantern which will draw them in if they are interested in any of them. 

It would appeal to family as well due to the popular voice actors/actresses voicing the characters, they would also have nostalgia of playing with the toy when they was younger as well. The main character may also be like the adults of the families, causing them to build a relationship with him as they can relate to his character. 

Explain the poster campaign and the representations created within it. Homework

The Lego Movie: Video game

L/O: to explain how vertical integration benefits companies; to analyse using Uses & Gratification theory

Resident Evil
The Simpsons Game
Harry Potter & The order of the Phoenix
Spider-man 2
Shrek the Third

       Reasons companies synchronise releases:

• Maximised Profit
• Familiarity
• Extends pleasure of film
• The game promotes film or vice versa 

Uses and Gratification (U&G)

Reasons for media:

1.Entertainment: offers distraction from the world

2.Personal Identity: helps us consider who we are;what ideas and values we identify with

3.Relationships: we find things we can share and discuss with others

4. Information: New information we want to know or take pleasure in knowing

Analysis of Video Game cover:

The main image is an overview of the characters highlighting the main ones.

The middle of the cover at the the top is the LEGO® logo, next to it is the title, The Lego Movie videogame. There is a bright and vivid colour pallete and the font used is quite angular and bricks.

The cover is represented very kid friendly and it is very aware of what the brand is.

Context

The pleasure offered by the game is mainly to play the roles of the characters that the audience has seen in marketing and the movie if they have seen it previously to the game.

The cover represents the movie posters by keeping the same style and characters on them. 

The Lego Movie: TV Advertising

L/O: To evaluate the methods used to market The Lego Movie; to link the method to the target audience

In Dancing on ice at 7.27pm on Sunday 9th February ITV broadcasted the worlds first ad break made entirely out of Lego.

'Stings' featuring the characters (where characters from movie pops up).

Same time it was shown live, they released it in full on YouTube.

The reaction on Social Media surpassed exception and the reception was overwhelming.

Reached almost six million live.

1.1 Million people watched it on YouTube in a week.

Number one movie in 2014.

Explain how the Lego Movie broke boundaries with branded marketing.

In the lead up the the global release for The Lego Movie, Warner Bros. and Lego was very smart regarding their marketing techniques for the movie. They made the people excited for the release fall in love with the movie before it even released by filling them with excitement and hype, creating walking adverts for the movie. They achieved this by avoiding the money hungry approach and making a love letter to the Lego franchise by putting huge amounts of passion into the production and not taking greedy shortcuts.

Warner Bros. & Lego aimed marketing at all three types of target audience and chose when and where to advertise carefully, they chose prime TV times (6pm-9pm) on ITV, during big entertainment shows, this was because traditionally this is when a family would most likely be in one place. Financially this wasn't the best choice, however the response to it was positive and helped them achieve a wider audience.

While some would argue that The Lego Movie is a child's movie, there is no denying the innovation it put into marketing and achieved marvels in its first week at the box office making $69,050,279.

The Lego Movie: Marketing

Posters
TV Adverts
Youtube Ads
Magazine adverts
Tie-in ride at a theme park
Trailers (Teasers & Theatrical)
Billboards

Synergy
Synergy is the simultaneous release of different products to boost both

                                                   The Lego Movie tie-in merchandise:

                                                         The lego Movie Video Game

                                                              17 Lego Worlds Set

                                                          16 collectible mini figures

                                                           Range of school supplies 

                                                          Sticker & Activity books 

Each week in January 2014, a new character poster was released.
Lego stores scheduled linked events
Free accessory packs were available in stores after building creative models in-store
video game released 4th February
On 7th February, McDonalds released collectible 3D cups with happy meals
A website enabled fans to make versions of themselves


Horizontal and Vertical Intergration

Guardian:
1. entertaining content aimed at audience
2. They created a genuinely funny and clever movie
3. By passing it down through generations

Lego Movie: Target Audience

L/O: To identify the target audience using demographics & psychographics

   
Audience of the lego movie:

•  Young kids who play with Lego®

Child friendly art-style, bright vivid colours, simple storyline in general, obvious humour, simple language, different worlds.

•  Parents who played with it when they were young too

Classic Lego figures for nostalgic purposes, Real world references, subtle adult humour, References to older adult films such as The matrix and Lord of the Rings, includes a message about creativity.

•  Young adult cinema-goers 

Both subtle and obvious adult humour, Love story between Emmet and Wyldstyle

•  Both genders

1. Both genders play a major role in the movie
2. Pink and 'pretty' worlds
3. 
   

Lego Movie: Intertextuality & TA

Postmodernism:

Uses the audiences perception of reality and shifts it on its head, it doesn't focus on immersion by letting the audience know that the universe the movie is in is one far from their own.

'Postmodernism questions what is real and what is absolute.'

             -Palmer 2014

The lego movie is postmodernist as it contains characters that contradict the typical movie protagonists, take Emmet who is far from a hero, he begins the movie with as much opportunity as everyone else. He greets his neighbours, goes to work and watches TV just like everyone else, at the beginning he is very sub-superior to the 'master builders' but through his own imagination and self-belief he turns himself into the hero he dreams to be.

The movie contains multiple genres and constantly flicks between them all, it begins as a light-hearted comedy but in the middle plays on action-adventure.

Intertextuality :

The movie starts on a lego figure starting the day who we learn is called Emmet, then he mistakenly gets imprisoned,  he meets a 'master builder' called WyldStyle that breaks him out and informs him that he is 'the special'. He meets Characters from pop culture that are part of the master builders such as Batman,Superman and Han Solo. They find out that Emmet is not a master builder and get angered by this, President Business sends his robots to kill the master builders. Emmet ends up having to partner up with Wyldstyle to save the city of BricksBurg by showing President Business that there is no point in killing all the master builders because he can believe in himself enough to become one.

The message is that if anyone believes in themselves enough they can conquer anything and achieve their dreams, all they need is imagination and creativity.

• The whole movie follows the same plot and idea of 'the matrix' 
• Contains characters from the superhero genre
• A game was released along with The Lego Movie 

Propp's Spheres of Action: