Introduction
The movie Transformers 1 was released on July 3, 2007, domestic total gross was $319,246,193; foreign total gross was $390,463,587, and its worldwide box office was $709,709,780 (Box Office Mojo, 2007). Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Transformers 2) was released on 24 June, 2009 and its domestic total gross was $402,111,870 and foreign total gross was $434,185,358, and the total box office was $836,297,228 (Box Office Mojo, 2009). Although Transformers 2 obtained more money than the first one, the reviews of second one were not fully up to expectations. According to Rotten Tomatoes (2009), the average rating of Transformers 2 was 3.9/10, which was low compared to the first movie with a 5.8/10 rating. A review of Transformers 2 on Rotten Tomatoes was “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a noisy, underplotted, and overlong special effects extravaganza that lacks a human touch” (Anonymous, 2009).
The third movie of Transformers will be released on July 1, 2011 (MichaelBay.com, 2009). Paramount Pictures, which is one of the production movie companies of the Transformer series, is worried that the bad reviews of Transformers 2 will lead to the decline of number of moviegoers of Transformers 3. In order to attract a greater degree of audience for Transformers 3, a comprehensive marketing campaign is necessary for the new Transformers movie. This campaign includes situation analysis, marketing objectives, target markets, marketing strategies, and tracking and evaluation.
Situation Analysis
“Bad Reviews”
Paramount Pictures’ worries that the bad reviews of Transformers 2 will influence the attitude of moviegoers for Transformers 3 are not unreasonable. First of all, “stereotypes” (Allport, 1954) play a very important role in influencing people’s mind, which means a fixed impression of a certain group or an object. Because Transformers 2 received bad reviews, moviegoers may have a stereotype (Allport, 1954) about Transformers 3; they think that Transformers 2 was in poor quality, so Transformers 3 will not be good. As a result, one of the goals of this campaign is to convince moviegoers that Transformers 3 will be fantastic.
Moreover, conformity (Asch, 1956) is another type of social influence technique that will influence people when they make decisions. For instance, when someone’s friends say Transformers “sucks”, although one person may think it is not that bad, he may still say he agrees with them, because he is afraid the different opinion will let his friends “kick him out”. In this campaign, the movie company should use some methods to encourage conformity (Asch, 1956) to support Transformers 3.
In addition, if moviegoers read too many bad negative reviews of the movie, they may have the negative impression before they really go to see the film. Then when they are watching Transformers 3, any little disappointment of the movie will make them think that the movie is really as bad as some reviewers said. In the end, the audiences may make a conclusion that Transformers 3 has disappointed them. This situation is known as the Self-fulfilling prophecy (Merton, 1948), which could help a previous belief come true through one’s own actions or others’ actions. If the same audiences had watched the movie without any previous reviews, they may not thought the movie is awful.
SWOT Analysis of Transformers 3
In order to make a comprehensive campaign, a comprehensive analysis is necessary. The campaign team will use a SWOT Analysis analyzes Transformers 3 in the following four aspects: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths.
According to the director of Transformers series, Michael Bay (2010), Transformers 3 will be released in both typical 3-D and IMAX 3-D, and this is the first time that Transformers series will have 3-D effects, which will attract audiences who love 3-D movies. Since audiences can not watch 3-D movie in their homes, so if they want to experience Transformers in 3-D, they will have to go to movie theaters.
Michael Bay (2010) has stated that Transformers 3 will be the final movie of the Transformers series.. He is confident that Transformers fans will like the final movie. This could capitalize on the principle of scarcity (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981), because if moviegoers do not go to see this final movie, they will not have another opportunity, since there will not be another entry of Transformers series.
In addition, a sexy 22-year-old British model, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, is taking Megan Fox’s place, to take the leading actress role of Transformers 3. People first know her because she is a top model of Victoria’s Secret. Sexy and charming posters of Rosie hang on the wall of Victoria’s Secret stores, which attract not only boys but also girls. There is no denial that Rosie is beautiful and sexy, which may be the dream of girls. Members of the female audience wish (James, 1956) they could be as sexy as Rosie one day, so they regard Rosie as their possible-self (Markus & Nurius, 1986). This behavior can be also explained by the identification (Freud, n.d.) concept. When women consumers of Victoria’s Secret are very familiar (Zajonc, 1968) with Rosie, they like her and expect her performance on the big screen in the movie theaters. Unlike Megan Fox, Rosie is from Britain, which attracts the British audience due to in-group (Tajfel & Zimbardo, 1971) principle.
Weaknesses.
When Michael Bay announced that Rosie will be the heroine of Transformers 3, some audiences questioned her acting skill, since she did not have a lot of previous acting experience, especially with this kind of big production. While Rosie has already attracted a lot of audiences, audiences will not satisfy with this movie if the leading actress’performance is poor.
Opportunities.
After Avatar, 3-D movies become one of the most popular ways of presenting movies. In order to experience the feeling with the actors and actresses, audiences like watching 3-D movies. The movie market nowadays is good for 3-D movies; therefore, Transformers 3 will face a promising market by having 3-D effects.
Threats.
As the article mentioned at the beginning, Transformers 2 got low ratings and bad reviews, which will be the biggest threat for the third movie. Beside, summer usually is one of the best times for presenting movies, because students will begin their summer vocation. However, this means a lot of blockbuster movies will be shown in this period, such as Cars 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (Rivers, 2010). The campaign team needs to analyze other movies’ strengths and attract moviegoers to see Transformers 3 instead of other movies.