Slumdog Millionaire: Marketing, Promotion and Distribution

Slumdog Millionaire used a range of different media types in order to help promote, market and distribute the movie as a whole.

As with any film, a movie poster is one of the most important ways to help promote the film and will often be distributed in a range of locations in order to bring a wider audience and awareness. Often movie posters give the audience their first impression of a movie including themes, characters and the genre. Slumdog's movie poster connotes themes of love and romance further prolonging the idea of a romantic drama genre. The poster uses a dream like quality which is heightened by the colour and lightening used. The movie poster establishes the actors and the roles they play. With help of lightening, Latika the female lead is given a angel like quality which links in with the narrative of the story and giving the impression that she is someone to be desired and to be found adding to the theme of perseverance. The black background used gives the movie a sense of intensity and drama. The poster artistically uses ways in order to show it is an independent film rather than of mainstream status. This is done through using a screenshot taken directly from the film for the focus image heightening the fact that the movie in itself is important and it can sell itself.

The trailer, alike to the movie poster also gives a sense of the genre and themes for the film. The trailer for Slumdog uses uplifting music, iconography and colour to represent the Indian heritage and culture. With the help of enigma codes the trailer raises questions that can only be answered by the audience by watching the movie. The trailer also gives the audience the idea of he narrative/plot and introduces us to characters.

In modern society, movies often use the internet and social media in order to help promote the movie as a while. Interestingly, Slumdog used many forms of online marketing including Tugg PCC campaigns featured on major websites including Google and Yahoo, targeting searchers interested in particular subject areas including Pathe, Danny Boyle and Bollywood. Tugg worked within Google featuring play trailer ads and targeting banners to help bring awareness to the film. Social networking sites offers an informal marketing strategy for the film; allowing fans to help communicate and have an insight look on the film. Facebook cleverly does this by posting behind the scenes videos, pictures and information help gathering over more than three million followers for the movie alone.