Essay Question

 "Synergy and Cross-Media-Convergence are vital processes in the successful marketing of media products to audiences." To what extent do you agree with this statement in relation to your chosen media area?

Synergy and Cross-Media-Convergence are ways that conglomerates use to market or promote their product like a film. For Example, before the release date of "The Dark Knight" Warner Bros. created an alternate reality game that made a real-time Gotham city, that attracted 10 million unique players.

This was a city where the joker left his mark on everything, like posters and dollar bills, this stated to create an army of joker henchmen all around the world. At comic-con players gathered to take their first orders from the joker. Using Cross-Media-convergence Warner Bros. went online to promote The Dark Knight even more by letting players work together to scavenge for clues, and it wasn't a long time until players noticed a massive clue in the sky with a bunch of jets writing a phone number. When dialed the number the joker stated "If you want to be part of my crew you're going to need to prove you're up to the challenge", this broke out into the streets with all players dressed up like the joker and it was like Gotham city spilled out into the real world creating excitement and anticipation to The Dark Knight release.

The players around the world figured out another clue with the joker saying "Tonight you are going to break your one rule" which was a request to hit local landmarks in full joker mode by wearing makeup and acting like him, from London to the Middle East to Pennsylvania to India, where a world wide community was birthed, a world where nothing was safe from the joker.

A New Zealand film called what we do in the shadows had a crowd funded budget of $1.6 million USD, with Box Office 7 million USD, and it was released on 19th January 2014 with the director of Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement and a few producers that are Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Chelsea Winstanley, Emanuel Michael, Pamela Harvey-White. They have used Cross-Media-Convergence and Synergy to promote their film. Through Synergy, what we do in the shadows have changed the Wellington sign to "Vellington" to give and understanding that it is Wellington but with vampires. The cast of what we do in the shadows also went into a cinema dressed up in their characters to watch their film and promote their film even more.

Through Cross-Media-convergence, the cast of what we do in the shadows had created profiles on dating apps while they were dressed up as vampires this helped them even more to advertise their film to the market.

NZFC is not a big conglomerate as they are sponsored by the NZ Government, during the marketing and distribution process NZFC isn't concerned about the money they will receive when the film is distributed and watched, but they are more concerned about the local landmarks that tourists will visit because of various films.

One Example of Cross-Media-Convergence is when AirNZ and WETA Workshop partnered up and created a brand new safety ad with all the Hobbit characters to tell passengers all about their rules when flying with AirNZ, this engaged with the audiences as everyone was geeking over the ad and wanted to fly with AirNZ to feel the whole experience.

My Hollywood blockbuster is AVATAR, they had a budget of $273 Million USD, with a Box Office of 2.802 billion USD, and it was released on the 17th of December 2009. Its director was James Cameron and with producer Jon Landau working together very closely. They used synergy to promote their film to the market by partnering with Coca-Cola and producing a new custom can to fit the AVATAR theme, which opened the world of Pandora. AVATAR also used their A-List actors to advertise their film, AVATAR had a lot of influential celebrities, where Sam Worthington was an actor for Terminator (2018) and Zoe Saldana was and actress for the film of Star Trek. The combination gave the audience hopeful expectations.

Cross-Media-Convergence was also a way to promote their product to the market, so AVATAR and Facebook teamed up to create a webcast that was called "Avatar Live." which was sponsored by LG. James Cameron and producer, Jon Landau, and stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana were interviewed by MTV News. To make it more interesting the questions were submitted by Internet fans leading up to the event. Hollywood said that the 30-Minute interview was one of the most effective Hollywood webcast to date.

AVATAR had also created interactive trailers that showcased stimulcam wit integrated social media feeds, this interacted with the audience as they would interact with the trailer.

Disney used Cross-Media-Convergence to broadcasted a 90th special on ABC and are having mickey travel all around the world, while stopping at some worldwide theme parks along the way, and will be shown on Good Morning America. 

Disney used Synergy to promote themselves with merchandise with the "Mickey True Original" brand, places with this brand sell shoes that appeal to Vans , Levis Jackets, and even candy.