Monsters University

Monsters University was released on June 21, 2013, produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The film made earned  a gross of $268,488,329 at the box office (imdb.com). The release date for the film had changed several times, and was said "to be released on November 16, 2012, but was pushed back to November 2 to avoid competition with another film, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2." (disney.wikia.com). The official release had then been set on June 21, 2013. The plan to change the release was a smart move, as the movie may have been affected negatively with such a well-known movie series coming out around the same time. This is one of the many factors that made the film a huge hit. Let's talk more about the marketing strategy for this film. The first trailer to be shown was released online on June 20, 2012, and also in theatres while Brave was screening. Different trailer versions for the film were released by several news outlets like YouTube, ITunes Trailers, Yahoo!, and The Huffington Post. The film expanded from trailers to creating a website in October 2012 (click here to view the website), and is described as the following "The website covers all subjects of a real university website, and includes a store where related merchandise can be bought" (disney.wikia.com). The film had a playful, funny idea of playing an April's fools day prank in which "the website was changed to look like it had been hacked and vandalized by Fear Tech, Monster University's rival school" (disney.wikia.com). Another sneak peek for the film was shown on February 15, 2013, and it was also shown on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The film was targeting a national audience, and released a trailer in Japan for example. The last major appearance for the film's promotion was during the Kid's Choice Awards in 2013. The marketing, and promoting methods for this particular film resulted with success.
I really enjoyed this movie, and own a copy of it. The website created is fun, unique, and interactive, and an overall genius idea. However, it does not work well in terms that the overall audience consists of young children, that may not be able to navigate the website as it resembles closely to an actual college website. Other than that, the marketing ideas were quite out of this world, and they definitely got attention for it, which resulted in a larger audience than ever imagined.

References

Disney Wikia. (n.d.). Monsters University - DisneyWiki. Retrieved February 3, 2015, from http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Monsters_University

IMDb. (n.d.). Monsters University (2013) - IMDb. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1453405/?ref_=nv_sr_2

Monsters University. (n.d.). Monsters University. Retrieved from http://monstersuniversity.com/edu/

Nerdist. (n.d.). Monsters University Poster. Retrieved from http://www.nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MU_Bleachers_Online_1s_w2.0.jpg