Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros have, in my opinion, done everything in their power to get the message to their target audience that Pacific Rim is a must see movie. They have explored every avenue to reach their audience from appearing at events, to running television commercials to ensuring that billboards all over the country have a fight scene on them. I do not believe that Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros have missed any opportunities and have successfully saturated the market with awareness. However, due to some bad reviews coming through from critics, Pacific Rim's opening weekend has not done all too well. This being said, the weekend is not over and we will not know final numbers until later in the week.

Publicity

Pacific Rims director Guillermo Del Toro promoted the movie heavily at the 2013 E3 show in June at the Los Angeles convention centre. E3 is the Electronic Entertainment Expo is an annual trade fair for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association. It is used by many video game publishers and accessory manufacturers to show off their upcoming games and game-related merchandise. This is the perfect place for Pacific Rim to be advertised in such a way as majority of the people who attend E3 are also Pacific Rim's target audience. Guillermo Del Toro promoted the movie through a quite overview on the movie itself, how it was made and finished with a trailer exclusive to the E3 show. Pacific Rim had its own booth at the show which was continuously showing trailers and clips from the movie and the making of it. 

The move to have the director of Pacific Rim being the one at E3 has definitely scored highly by the fans of the show. Being at these trade events where the target market fights to get into is a very well thought out plan and I believe did wonders for the movie. It seemed as though Pacific Rim was a sponsor, even if it wasnt advertised that way as a couple of the other presenters had strong ties to Pacific Rim. Tracy Lee Stum and David Garibaldi both painted pictures from scenes of the movie or characters. There were even portraits of the director of Pacific Rim. 

References: 

E3 Expo, 2013. Home. [Online]
Available at: http://www.e3expo.com/
[Accessed 14 July 2013].

Earnest, J., 2013. 3 Days at E3. [Online]
Available at: http://www.qualcomm.com/snapdragon/blog/2013/06/20/3-days-e3
[Accessed 14 July 2013]. 

Facebook

As with all new movies and brands in general, Pacific Rim has a Facebook fan page. It currently has 463,635 Likes and a huge amount of interaction from fans about the movie. This page lets fans interact with each other and talk about the movie. Pacific Rim has pictures from the movie available as well as trailers and special clips from the movie which are exclusive to the Facebook page. The page also features apps which tell you where your closest cinema is and the showing times. Pacific Rim is also running a sweepstakes through its Facebook page to further reach and influence its audience.

The use of a Facebook page has become as standard as printing posters. The limitations of running a Facebook page is that once the fan base has seen the movie, there is a chance that any further updates about it will be perceived as being spam. It is an integral part of the overall IMC but can only be used for a short time. It also opens up a can of worms if there are some fans that did not enjoy the movie as they can complain openly in full view of all of their friends and fans of the page. This being said, I did not come across any bad reviews from the general public only glowing ones. It seems that this Facebook page has been hugely successful in doing what it set out to achieve. They created a fan base before the movie was released and kept up interest in the movie long before it was released and reached a larger audience.

References:
Legendary Pictures; Warner Bros; Pacific Rim Facebook Page (2013).

Game Tie-Ins

Warner Bros have gone a step further in marketing their new movie, Pacific Rim. They have developed games based on the movie with the same title and a similar story line. The games have been released onto Xbox Live as well as iPhone apps and an online gaming site. The games follow the trend of fighting the Kaiju to defend your cities. The anticipation of the movie was strengthened by these games as it immersed fans into the movie where they control their own Jaeger. The games have not received glowing reviews but are stated as being a "fun time waster".

The technique of creating a game inline with the movie has started to become a widely used form of communication. It can be viewed as just another avenue to reach the target audience as it may be some of the only places that the target audience will be exposed to the marketing messages.

References:
Legendary and Warner Bros, 2013. Jaeger Combat Simulator. [Online] 
Available at: http://jaegercombatsimulator.pacificrimmovie.com/
[Accessed 7 July 2013].
Microsoft, 2013. Pacific Rim Download. [Online] 
Available at: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-AU/Product/Pacific-Rim/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802584112c1
[Accessed 7 July 2013].
Reliance Big Entertainment, 2013. Pacific Rim App, India: Reliance.
Scified, 2013. Pacific Rim By Fans for Fans, California: SCIFIED.

Public Marketing Campaign

Pacific Rim opens nationally on the 11th, which means that Warner Bros is pushing their campaign hard. They have rented billboards on major arteries and nightspots to attempt to reach their target audience whilst they are in travel. Seeing as Pacific Rim is very much targeted at the 15-22 male age group, who statistically are not exposed to the usual mass marketing approaches, Warner Bros has had to turn to the public domain.
Billboards, posters in bus stops and train stations and posters on buses seem to be the only public form of advertising.

Posters can be seen with battle scenes appealing to their audience as well as the title of the movie and the release date. This ensures that passers by are easily and able to see what, where and when the movie can be viewed.
All of the posters no matter where they have appeared all have fight scenes on them, which I think shows Warner Bros is just appealing to the notion that males 15-22 only like violent movies. Which in my opinion, is a huge draw card. 

The only problem with advertising on billboards is that you rely on the target market being in the area or passing by the area where it is. Even then, you are not guaranteed of them even seeing it. Billboards and posters play a huge part in Warner Bros IMC for Pacific Rim. It sits well with their other tools as they are all based on the premise of "show fighting and destruction and they will come".

OzTAM and RegionalTAM, Audiovisual Markets Television. Australia's Multi Screen report for Q1, 2012 shows tel. [Online] 
Available at: http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/research/statistics/wptvviewing.aspx
[Accessed 7 July 2013].
Susko, C., 2013. Taylor Square. [Art] (Oxford Street; Darlinghurst).
Brechtbug, 2013. Pacific Rim Times Square Film Billboard 2430. [Art] (Times Square).

Focuses

Pacific Rim opens on nationally on the 11^th of July 2013 and Warner Bros. has been quite active with its lead up promotions. Television ads, Facebook pages, blogs, Fan pages, Billboards, posters and trailers. Fans of the show have created their own web pages with pictures, forums and information about the film, its cast and any news associated with it. This shows the viewer anticipation of the movie is quite high and will help the advertising for the movie immensely as it is a free service.

Warner Bros. seems to be focusing heavily on the Jaegers and their affiliation to a certain country. They are using this affiliation to a country to push the movie in certain countries by showing the efforts and characteristics of each one. They are also using scenes in each country where a Jaeger and a Kaiju are fighting over landmarks in each country. They are distributing this artwork to be put on bus stops, buses, billboards and posters.

The idea of focusing on the differences in Jaegers by country arouses the publics interest as they can compare the Jaegers and raise the age old debate about whos country is bigger, better & stronger. This then serves as a talking point between consumers and keeps the movie in the forefront of their minds.

References:

Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment, 2013. Home. [Online] 

Available at: www.pacificrimmovie.com/

[Accessed 22 June 2013].

Overview

Movie Synopsis:

"Pacific Rim is an upcoming 2013 American science fiction film directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by del Toro and Travis Beacham. The film is set in the near future when legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot and an untested trainee who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.
The film was produced by Legendary Pictures and will be distributed by Warner Bros. The film will be released in 3-D and IMAX 3D on July 12, 2013."


Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros Background:

Legendary Pictures LLC was founded in California in 2000 by Thomas Tull. In 2005 Legendary Pictures signed an agreement with Warner Bros to co-produce and co-finance up to 40 films over seven years. Legendary Pictures is now valued at more than 1 Billion dollars.

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. was founded in 1918 by Albert Warner, Harry Warner, Sam Warner and Jack Warner. Warner Bros. first movie theatre was opened in Cascade, NewCastle Pennsylvania. Warner Bros. now has a revenue of 12 Billion and holds the rights to 6,600 feature films, 48,000 television titles and 14,000 animated titles (including over 1,500 classic animated shorts).

References:

Legendary Entertainment, 2013. About. [Online] 

Available at: http://www.legendary.com/about/

[Accessed 22 June 2013].

Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment, 2013. Home. [Online] 

Available at: www.pacificrimmovie.com/

[Accessed 22 June 2013].

Warner Bros., 2013. Company Info. [Online] 

Available at: http://warnerbros.com.au/company-info

[Accessed 22 June 2013].