Playability and marketability are the two essential concepts that are used to determine whether or not a film could have a good position in the marketplace.
It is important to analyze the two aspects before a firm is launched because a thorough analysis could greatly help in implementing measures that could result in profitability. Playability and marketing are quite different with regard to film promotion.
Marketability is the extent to which a film can attract an audience. Films can be marketable only when they sound appealing to the targeted audience. The aim of producing a film is to make it appeal to many people.
A high number of people who go to watch a film implies increased revenues because they pay to watch, or when they buy the films. Thus, the production team should focus on aspects that could increase the marketability of a film.
For example, a film could adopt a successful book and/or famous personnel to make it increase its marketability. Audiences across the world like to associate with successful people or things.
Therefore, a film that uses renowned people and things that are known by a significant number of people have high chances of attracting audiences due to their appealing marketability. For example, film directors have been used to increase the extent to which films attract audiences.
Other aspects that could be used to increase marketability of a film include stories, acting, and cinematography. Therefore, when analyzing marketability of any film it is essential to ask “how many people can this film attract into the theatre?”
Such an analysis could be important in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a film. If the weak points are known, then they could be rectified so that they could not negatively impact the performance of a film in the marketplace.
On the other hand, playability is used to analyze what occurs in the audience in the theatre. It does not consider what makes an audience enter the theatre, but their experience with regard to a film. Playability could involve the analysis of the following questions:
- Does the film play well?
- How is the film rated by the audience?
- Has the movie generated word of mouth?
- Does the film catch the attention of film reviewers?
Therefore, playability predicts the extent to which a film will be received by an audience based on how it would meet expectations and other cues adopted in the marketing platform. Expectations of a film are often set by names of films. Playability of a film is more important than film marketability.
Playability implies the quality of production, themes and stories in a film. Even if a film with poor playability is marketed well it cannot withstand the dynamics of film markets.
For example, the best marketing approaches could be used to promote a film, but the targeted audience will spread the word portraying the poor quality of such a film.
However, a film that is characterized by a high quality of playability has the potential to make people convince their friends and colleagues to go and see it.
In fact, playability should be able to capture the faces and voices contained in marketing before a film is released. Playability is all about the targeted audiences, i.e. the thoughts that people develop upon watching a film.