New film releases use a wide range of methods to advertise but the actual methods used will depend on the film institution and use of directors and actors.

In the case of a new film from universal studios many ‘above the line’ methods will be used such as trailers, posters and merchandising to advertise the film, these are called ATL because of the obvious nature they have and because often the audience will see these methods in play in the world around them. But when a smaller film corporation for instance Warp films releases a film they rely on ‘below the line’ methods such as word of mouth (viral), websites and interviews because the audience will have to search for the advertisements, another way of describing this would be: secondary advertisements.

The films I’ll be discussing are 2012, The Men Who Stare at Goats and Bunny and the Bull.

Possibly the biggest influence on which type of advertisement a film receives is its budget as we can see in these films:

2012: $200,000,000 – ATL advertising: trailers, posters, merchandise.

The Men Who Stare at Goats: $25,000,000 – ATL advertising: trailers, posters.

Bunny and the Bull: $5,000,000 – BTL advertising: websites, interviews. $500,000 of that was spent of marketing

Since the likes of 4 weddings and a funeral advertising has moved on immensely, whereas before the main use of advertising was trailers and bill boards current advertising incorporates the use of the internet and relies strongly on viral marketing. This is because of the huge increase in internet use and social networking sites which are viewed in the millions each day, this makes internet advertising usually better than the traditional method of trailers.