LO3 - Advertising and Distribution

How the product reaches the audience

In this day and age, there are many more ways of viewing a film than there was 100 years ago.
In the 20th century, before advanced technology, people had to go to the cinema to watch everything: there were no televisions at all until the 1930s. As technology advanced, televisions were invented, allowing people to watch things right in their own home. By the end of the seventies we were able to watch films at home too, with video cassettes.
As technology has advanced, more and more ways of watching films have surfaced. Even though there aren't many people that watch films on video cassette any more, the amount of other methods just keeps on increasing.
Nowadays we can watch a film as a DVD on television or digitally on Netflix or Sky Movies, on our tablets, smartphones, games console, computer... the reason there are now so many different ways to watch a film is down to technological convergence. This is when all sorts of different types of media come together to create different forms. For example, now rather than having to buy a newspaper to read articles, we can find news articles online. Now we can browse the web and watch YouTube on an Xbox. We can use document apps on our tablets to write documents like we would in Microsoft Word.

Watching httyd 2 on Netflix on an Xbox is a form of converged technology. It's being watched digitally, which means we don't need a DVD to watch it as it's streaming live from the internet. This is convergence because it's using a games console, to stream something over the internet, with Netflix which is also an app in itself.
Another way we can watch httyd 2 is on a laptop or computer. There are different ways to do this, as you can also access Netflix from computers and laptops. Apart from Netflix, other ways we can watch httyd 2 include buying the DVD to put into the laptop or computer. Nowadays, most computers and laptops have disc ports that don't only install programs, but also play CD's and DVD's. This is technological convergence because only televisions used to be able to play DVD's with a DVD and video player. If a person doesn't want to buy the DVD, they can also buy the film in digital form online, from websites like Amazon and even YouTube.

HTTYD 2 earned $618.9m in the box office.
As of February 2015, 7.5 million home entertainment units have been sold worldwide.


How it is advertised and promoted

As well as having more ways for the audience to watch the film via new converging technology, the company had more ways to actually advertise the film. Ways the film has been advertised includes billboards, trailers (television and cinema), magazines, posters and on websites.