Cohesive Marketing Part One - Morgan Glover Evans

What is cohesive marketing?

Cohesive marketing is a strategy employed by producers and publishers in order to ensure that all platforms that promote their product are cohesive; they all have the same brand identity.

This is communicated through any number of means:

• A Particular Font: Some franchises have used a particular font or typography style to the point that their entire brand is carried by it. Take the font used for the Harry Potter series, for example. The jagged edges and narrow, bold letters have become a universally recognised symbol of not only the film series, but the story world itself. 

Here, you can see how the typography of the Harry Potter series links them across multiple different mediums, from a film poster, to a review page cover and even a video game. 

When applying this to our own, I think we should find our own unique typography and make sure we stay consistent with our decisions. If we do so, I think we'll be able to find a clear font style - just as we did in our AS production (bold and monochromic) - that'll help contribute to our cohesive marketing. 

• Colour Scheme: A specific combination of colours, or unique blend of shades and tones, can help separate a franchise from the rest and add to the cohesive feel of the brand. A good example of this would be the Star Wars posters. They're all linked, in one way or another, by the colours they use.

After looking at each poster, taken from all the different generations of Star Wars films, you can see a clear scheme that relates to the key conflict of the Star Wars franchise. You'll notice the importance of Blue and Red colours, which are often divided (especially in the case of the Force Awakens) between the evil and good forces in the narrative. 

The division of light/dark is the most important conflict in the narrative, and also helps create a unique brand identity for all posters and promotional material to follow.

We could also try to find a key colour scheme of our own to link our marketing campaign together. With social realist themes, these are more likely to be muted, less saturated colours.

• Slogan/Taglines: Sometimes, a film can be well-known for quotes and phrases that are attached either to specific characters, or to the narrative as a whole. Using these quotes or taglines on multiple different platforms for the promotional material can help create a strong brand identity. A good example of this would be the iconic "I'll be back" line from the Terminator trilogy. 

With the first two Terminator films being so iconic, and the stoic delivery of "I'll be back" resonating with audiences across the globe, marketing campaigns for subsequent films (even though they were never able to match the qualities of the original two) were very strong. 

This franchise shows how a single line can be an extremely important for a franchise and it's marketing. However, this process can't often be controlled; writers who force in buzzwords and phrases rarely produce anything that resonates. Because of this, we won't directly attempt to produce 'the' phrase of our production. Rather, we'll pick the strongest line that represents our piece for our poster instead of attempting to force one in.

• Characters/Actors: Sometimes, in order to link together various marketing materials, the face of a brand is selected. This character or actor is chosen to represent the franchise, and as such lead all marketing efforts. Faces chosen are usually famous celebrities, as the audience draw for them is already very strong - not just niche fans of the celebrities themselves, but mass audiences who recognise A-list faces. An excellent example of this would be Daniel Craig in the recent James Bond films.

As the James Bond franchise has evolved and the role has changed actors, much of the marketing for these films has rested on the shoulders of the current Bond. In this case, Craig has represented the last four films in the franchise. This shows how important the actor is in linking promotional material together.

Again, we'll most likely promote our actor in our material, but, being a much smaller production, I don't think it would aid our marketing to try and sell our product based on the actors alone. Instead, we'll focus on the narrative, and possibly the character rather than the actor behind him.

Conclusion 

I want to return to this idea of cohesive marketing with tangible updates. 

Once we fully plan the stories, characters, and visuals, I'll be a lot more comfortable selecting a method in which to make sure our brand identity is consistent across all platforms. However, as it is, I'm confident I can define not only what cohesive marketing is, but how to apply it to our own work at a later stage of development.