The Salesforce Awakens - How to leverage your original offering by marketing masters - Lucasfilms and Disney

The Salesforce Awakens- 
 How to leverage your original offering
 by  marketing masters
 - Lucasfilms and Disney

Sainsbury promoting Blu Ray and DVDs of the latest Star Wars
 epic only 5 months after the main cinema release

A long time ago in a galaxy  far , far away........

Thirty years after the defeat of the Galactic Empire, the galaxy faces a new threat from the evil Kylo Ren and the First Order. When a defector named Finn crash-lands on a desert planet, he meets Rey , a tough scavenger whose droid contains a top-secret map. Together, the young duo joins forces with Han Solo  to make sure the Resistance receives the intelligence concerning the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker , the last of the Jedi Knights.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens , broke yet another box office record It is officially - after just 22 days - the biggest-selling film in UK history, taking over £100 million at the box office. 

Well sold all those who make this franchise work.

The film broke records left , right and centre since it's release . Some of them include :-

• the biggest ever opening weekend, 
• the fastest movie to reach $1 billion worldwide 
• and the biggest single day at the box office.

The film has already amassed over $1.59 billion worldwide and there's little sign of it slowing down.

The next marketing challenge after the successful play in the cinemas is the release of the DVD and Blu Ray product . 

It will now exploit opportunities for New product Development, New Market ( home) development and Diversifying though Acquisition , Mergers and Joint Ventures.

There have been a few indignant franchise fans tweeting their disappointment of the DVD release of The Force Awakens because the DVD does not have some of the Blu Ray content.

Despite the film taking over £100 million at the box office, some fans of the franchise feel the DVD release is seriously lacking, compared to the US offering.

On Social media one purchaser tweeted: "Not happy - no extras on the Force Awakens DVD. Not all of us have Blu-Ray! Rip-off!"

While another told distributor Amazon, the DVD release was a 'misrepresentation' of the listing.

Their posting read "Very disappointed that the DVD version does not have the deleted scenes, this isn't clear at all it isn't that same with two different format options. Shame on you Amazon for this misrepresentation"

What is key is that they need to maximise sales
 .

The Film franchise Star Wars is masters of this.

“The Force awakens” movie is not just released in a home viewing product such as  DVD or Blu Ray etc but there is a plethora of add-ons and accessories. 

The cardboard engineers have excelled themselves in Point of Sale displays and merchandising support.










Agreements with the likes of Hasbro, Lego and Xbox etc  have rendered a veritable zoo of toy talking plush characters such as BB8, Chewbacca Yoda and Storm Troopers all with voices from the film , Hot wheels vehicle models ,Lego 6-12 kits , sticker books, video prequels, branded merchandise mugs T shirts and such like .

One particular add-on which caught my eye was a ‘novelisation’. 

Movies are often inspired by or based on a book but I was wondering how long books have been written based on films.

 It is longer ago than you might think and much older than the Star Wars phenomenon.

Novelizations began to be produced back in the 1920s for silent films such as ‘London After Midnight’ (1927). One of the first talkies to be novelized was ‘King Kong’ (1933).

Film novelizations were especially profitable during the 1970s before home video became available as they were then the only way to re-experience popular movies.

The novelizations of Star Wars (1977) and Alien (1979) have sold millions of copies.

Less maybe more but not in novelization.

The writer of a novelization multiplies the 20,000-25,000 words of the film screenplay into at least 60,000 words. 

Writers usually achieve that by adding description or introspection. Ambitious writers are moreover driven to work on transitions and characters just to accomplish "a more prose-worthy format".

There are times when the "novelizer" may decide to create completely new scenes in order to give the plot a richer dimension, provided (s)he is allowed to do that. 

It might take an insider or an avid fan to identify whether a novelization diverges unintentionally from the finally released film because it is based on an earlier version which possibly included some deleted scenes.

Novelization writers are often also accomplished original fiction writers, as well as fans of the works they adapt. 

Making a lot of lolly  ( even lollies)  from the spin offs

You will even find how negotiation is undertaken by the loathsome merchant Unkar Plutt and heroine Rey to reach a counter deal agreement  of 100 portions for her day's salvage (pages 40-44) even if her word is not her bond so far as BB8 is concerned !

Novelizer Alan Dean Foster,  says that, as a fan, "I got to make my own director’s cut. I got to fix the science mistakes, I got to enlarge on the characters, if there was a scene I particularly liked, I got to do more of it, and I had an unlimited budget. So it was fun"

May the awakened Sales force be with you folks !