The Force Awakens earlier than ever before: how Disney is leading the trend for early digital distribution

It's testament to the power of the Star Wars brand and Disney’s aggressive marketing strategy that the film has performed so well in a challenging market. Across the US cinema attendance plateaued in 2002-3 and has been steadily declining since. Ticket sales plummeted to an all-time low in 2014. Young people make up a large proportion of these declining figures, with cinema attendance among 14-24 year-olds across the US dropping 15 per cent in 2015.

Streaming video services, principally Netflix, are largely to thank for this; seducing the youth demographic away from traditional entertainment consumption patterns. Cable and broadcast TV networks have been threatened by online streaming services since their inception, but filmmakers are now employing new strategies to compete with online streaming.

In light of this, Jason Harrison, chief executive of Gain Theory, cites the reason for filmmakers changing their strategies as a sustainability issue, since “box office sales are declining while marketing prices rising”.

That shift is backing movie studios into a corner, seemingly leaving them with no other option but to jump on the bandwagon. Big blockbuster movies can reap the rewards of paid-for online streaming services to promote their titles.

“Timing is important” added Harrison. Most people make up their mind if they will see a film in the theatre in the seven days leading up to the launch, so this is prime time for marketers to churn out the best content, he advised.

To that end, Disney is thinking outside of the box office with its strategy for the film by already promoting the digital release of the blockbuster on Apple iTunes and Sky. Most movies are either given massive theatrical launches or they are relegated to on-demand and DVD. But Disney is the latest (and perhaps the biggest) to experiment with a third way that offsets a more aggressive theatrical window with an almost simultaneously huge push for the digital and DVD release that will happen later this year.

There are no official release dates for either the DVD or Blu-Ray editions of The Force Awakens, but thanks to leaks April is being tipped as the month fans will be able to see the latest edition in the mega-franchise at home. The film’s iTunes release date will likely arrive earlier than DVD and Blu-Ray as is becoming common practice for movie studios now. For example, the iTunes release of The Martian is three weeks ahead of the DVD release date. Taking this into account it would mean the latest Star Wars can be watched from the comfort of someone’s home as early as March – a mere three months after its cinema release.

There are potential issues with promoting the digital release of a movie while big theatrical releases are still going on. There is certainly room for concern that the overlapping of the two release windows could affect box office revenues; since some may opt to forgo paying to see the film in cinemas and wait for the digital release.

Harrison claimed Star Wars does not have the same problem other films would have by overlapping the promotion of the seperate releases, because of the size of spectacle; "a film which is best consumed in the theatre".

So, notes Harrison, the risk of cannibalising box office revenues is much lower in such a big, well established franchise. He also observed that a significant proportion of the film’s audience will have seen the original films in the theatre, and will consequently want to do the same for the new film.

For advertisers, there is more emphasis on digital channels because “they enable measurability, economic efficiency and the ability to seed content much earlier” and broaden the marketing footprint, notes Harrison.

Jehoshua Eliashberg, a Wharton marketing professor, cited the effective integration of divisions by Disney as a reason for Star Wars' success.

"I’ll give you an example,” he added. “Disney owns ABC and before the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens [came out], the anchors at ABC came to Good Morning America dressed up as Star Wars characters. That’s a nice synergy between your TV and your studio divisions.”

Harrison continued on this point: “Synergising divisions is seeing a lot of manouvering across industries in the US, with content companies increasingly being part of distribution networks. Studios have to pay premium dollars to market across broadcast outlets, so the more they can leverage the cost the better.”

In particular, Harrison predicted an increase in digital cross-promotions on owned digital properties.

Is synergising the future of marketing?

Disney is not the only one changing its distribution techniques; The Weinstein Company released the digital version of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight earlier than planned to “meet demand”, with The Weinstein Company executive Erik Lomis citing “the demand from moviegoers to see this film has exceeded our capabilities in 70mm”. Respecting the wishes of director Tarantino the film was originally released on 70mm film only, but since only a handful of cinemas are equipped with 70mm projectors, the digital release was brought forward by two days to make it available to a wider audience.

This shift in focus is emblematic of film makers eschewing the old tropes of movie marketing to ensure they develop engaging experiences both inside the theatre and out, extending the engagement with the viewer to keep up with the way people view film content now.

"If you look at the entertainment sector, it is being radically disrupted by tech [as the emergence of DVD's and Netflix, etc., mean less people are in a rush to view movies in the cinema],” said Harrison.

“If you want to get someone to go to the movies, you are looking at levels of cost that are rapidly increasing [in terms of media spend], but overall revenue is not going in the same way.”

However, while these techniques worked well for Star Wars, the marketing for each film requires a nuanced approach, since each technique works for different films in different ways.