Digital Techologies essay

Question:

Evaluate the role of digital technologies in the marketing and consumption of products in the media area you have studied.

Answer:

In this essay i am going to analyse the ways digital technology affects the marketing and consumption of films. Some film companies that i will be using as examples are Warp and Working Title. There has been a big effect on the consumption of films in the film industry and this is because of digital technologies. In recent years the different ways that you can access a movie has increased and has also become a lot easier. There was only two was of watching films at one point and this was either attending the cinema or buying the movie on a dvd and watching it on a DVD player. There was no other way to watch a movie that wasn't  available to buy or was still in the cinema, if people couldn't make it to the cinema then they would have to wait until it was released on DVD. With the latest technology we are now able to go online and watch any movie of our choice, may be old or new, whatever time you can watch it. There are lots of different places where you can do this and these are called the role of digital technology, and example of a few of these roles of digital technology are Netflix, Sky Movies, Amazon Prime or streaming the films illegally off websites such as putlocker and Umovies. Just from my small list you can see that there is a large variety of ways to watch a film. Because of the high amount of sites this has resulted in less people going to the cinemabecause it is cheaper and easier to just stay at home and stream the movies on your tv in your own comfort, this also appeals to more people. These digital technologies have risen in popularity rapidly and are greatly changing the way films are consumed. Because of the sudden popularity they are putting companies out of business. An example of a major business which has been affected by these digital technologies so much that they were forced to shut down is blockbuster. BlockBusters business was set around letting customers come into their shop and browse films and then buying them or renting them for a certain amount of time. This was challenged by Netflix because they offered the same deal apart from you didn't have to leave your house and it was instant, this is a lot more convenient and why more and more people started using it. These companies then also expanded onto mobile phones meaning people could watch any film they like, anywhere. Because of the large effect these digital companies have had this means companies like working title and warp have to adapt as well. They have adapted and fit in by uploading some of their movies onto Netflix but Working title are able to do this easier and put more on Because money isnt much of an issue because of the size of their business however Warp have to carefully consider which movies they should put on these sites because they have to makes sure that their decisions are wise otherwise it might not work out for the business, this results in Warp still having to stick with traditional DVDs as their main source of consumption .

The film industry has been impacted by digital technologies, the companies that i have studies Working title and Warp have also been effected in a variety of ways. Nanny Mcphee is a movie which was produced by the film company Working title. Nanny Mcphees budget which was $25 million which compared to a  popular Warp films movie Submarine £2.5 million it meant that Working Title could use these digital technologies to their advantage  and greater scale than Warp when distributing their movie. Because of Working Titles big budgets it means that they were able to take lots of different approaches when advertising ranging from TV advertisements and Billboards in prime locations. This also meant that Working Title could easily access their target audience without much of a problem. Even though Working Title had a big budget they still went for the more traditionalt way of marketing and diddnt focus enough on one asspect of digital technologies that is is very important, this is social media. Working Title still are able to do a lot more marketing than Warp because of the size of the companie and the moeny they have but because of social media indie companies such as Warp have greatly bemnfited from it. Socical media is a very effective way of marketting and this is because the majority of people have acces to the internet and will browse it daily meaning that whatever you put out their can be witnessed by a large amount of people. This can then result in your marketing being spread not even by you, if one person likes what a post they may choose to share it which could start a long train of shares resulting in more people seeing your advertisement. This is very helpful because it will save companies such as Warp time promoting. small companies such as Warp are still at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing but the advance in digital technologies means that they have a good chance of promoting  their film.

In conclusion, digital technologies are very important and have changed the way companies market and how customers consume films drastically and they are still changing today.