Marketing for Gravity

Trailers

Gravity's compelling trailers drove audiences to cinemas in the first months it was released and the trailers are an important reason for this. 

The first was the Detached trailer which was the first of two teaser trailers and is roughly a minute long and is an incredibly dramatic single shot of getting lost in space. The second of the two teaser trailers was the Drifting trailer which was just as exciting and terrifying, showing the emptiness, eeriness and loneliness of space.    

Film festivles

The film was announced at many festivals, both film and other sorts. Firstly, a minute long clip was shown at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.  

Other festivals included:

• Comic-Con
• The Big Three Festival Circuit (Venice, Telluirde and Toronto)

Social Media

Social media sources such as Twitter, Flixter and Facebook played a huge part in the success of Gravity. At first it was just from avid fans of Bullock and Clooney and movie fans in general. Then spreading to mainstreamer's who, once got a glimpse of the concept of the film, couldn't get enough of it and made it a popular talking point worldwide.  

However it didn't start out such a big success on social media. 15% of social media chat was negative and 52% was from film lovers, though this was before release and premiers. Once reviews came out after the first big 'red carpet' premier views soon changed with 74% of social media views being positive and 3% negative.  

Four reasons why gravity did so well

1. Star power: The stars in the film, in this case Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, play a huge part and not just only in an acting perspective but in the marketing of the film, you need to have down to earth, likeable stars for people to relate to and to sell the film both on screen and on paper.   
2. Non-Spoilery Marketing: This is the idea that the marketing campaign reveals enough to make people want to see the film but not too much that it shows all the best parts leaving audiences disappointed at the end.
3. Rave reviews: Trying to get as many good reviews as possible before release and trying to maintain them after, currently Gravity has 5 bad reviews out of 218 on Rotten Tomatoes and have an average of 9.1/10.
4. The quality: Usually, the first weekend of release is about reviews and the rest about quality. In Gravity's case, the first weekend did both, getting brilliant reviews and making a solid $55.8 million due to the quality and general word-of-mouth.