How was 'Animal Kingdom' a marketing success?

Animal Kingdom was an independent film, funded by the independent Australian based producers – Porchlight Films. The estimated budget was around $5,000,000 (AUD) – which is very low budget for a film, thus showing the fact that it is an independent film. The only mainstream aid to this film was the American distribution by Sony Pictures Classics which is an area of Sony Pictures that deals with independent film and producers. Although this could be seen as mainstream interference it does not take away the fact that this film was solely independent as the first screenings the theatrical release was done through Porchlight Films and Sony Pictures only interfered to help distribute the film the US audience. Another producer was Madmen who helped to fund the film. They are also well-known film producers so therefore people will know that they would only back a film that is worth seeing and a film that is going to make a profit. Another key aspect of the marketing was that the film has won the ‘Sundance’ Film Festival award – which is a reputable festival known across the world, meaning this would have been a key selling point for the producers to get across to the audience.

On the theatrical release, in Australia, it was only shown on 40 screens instead of the usual 160 screens that a mainstream film would show. This is because this is appropriate for a film of such a low budget, as there might not be many people going to see the film on the release date as there are no A-list actors used and the director is fairly unknown, therefore most people would not set out to see the film initially so the use of only 40 screens is used to make sure they don’t overestimate the popularity of the film. So far, as of 17 March 2011, Animal Kingdom has grossed $6,793,982 (Worldwide), which is staggering amount considering that only $5,000,000 was initially spent on it.

Animal Kingdom was a marketing success due to the viral marketing used. They aimed to encapsulate their audience by selling the film online via social media such as Facebook and Twitter. This is commonly used by independent films due to that fact that is very cheap to market a film online and you can create viral buzz if you have a good trailer and focus on the storyline as a selling point and this is just what they did with Animal Kingdom. The trailer focuses on the storyline and the genre to sell the film to the audience. It uses the ‘Sundance’ Film Festival logo to show that they won the award – meaning they are showing to the audience that this film is worth watching. The use of an Animalistic lexical field – words such as ‘Hunted’, ‘Survival’, ‘Weak’, ‘Strong’ and ‘Creatures’ – is used to reflect the title ‘Animal Kingdom’ and show that the meaning of the title is shown throughout the film. It also uses the reviews from L.A Times and the Independent UK to show a positive review of the film. As the L.A Times said it was “Immaculate” and the Independent said it was “remarkable”.

All of these marketing techniques together have resulted in the film being a marketing success. The utilisation of the social media was used to great effectiveness and was used mainly due to fact that it is very cheap marketing.

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