Synergy and Cross-media-convergence Essay

Grace Watson

17 May 2020

Media Studies

Ownership H/W Essay 2 - Synergy and Cross-Media-Convergence

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Cross-media-convergence and synergy are exceptionally important and detrimental to the level of success of a film. Films by large conglomerates such as Disney are so successful, quite often thanks to synergy and cross-media-convergence they use.

This is proved, firstly, by comparing the overall success of large Hollywood blockbusters which have been marketed and promoted through the extensive use of synergy and cross-media-convergence in comparison to the smaller, less wealthy Indi films such as ‘Broken’ which are not promoted through such synergy or convergence.

Disney is a large conglomerate company which owned 26% of the studio market share in 2018. In its ownership are numerous subsidiaries such as ‘Fox’ (acquired by Disney for $2.9 billion in 2001), ‘Marvel’ (acquired by Disney for $4 billion in 2009), ‘ESPN’, ‘Disney Channel’ and the numerous ‘Disney Parks’ such as Disneyland and DisneyWorld. Disney is able to penetrate markets and easily distribute its films worldwide through vertical and horizontal integration. An example of its vertical integration is its purchasing of Fox, another production company, for $2.9 billion as discussed above, and an example of its horizontal integration is its owning and running of Disneyland and ‘Star Wars Land’. Both of these forms of integration enable Disney to spread its name far and wide, as well as promote itself through saturating the market, filling every area of media and thereby guaranteeing its movies’ chances of success.

Disney uses both the companies it is integrated with and the subsidiaries it owns to produce items of synergy such the ‘LEGO Jurassic World’ video game which was released shortly after the film on the 12th of June 2015 (and is now available on numerous platforms such PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch etc) and the Jurassic World LEGO sets which sell for between $30 and $500+ on ‘ToyCo’. Disney imprints logos, pictures, drawings of characters from the film, quotes from certain characters etc onto different objects for sale, such as phone cases, water bottles, t-shirts, sweat pants etc., an excellent example of this being the children’s series ‘MickeyMouse’ which has been further promoted this way. Toy light-sabers symbolising those from ‘Star Wars’ are a huge hit - children LOVE the idea of pretending to be in the movie, challenging their friends to a light-saber fight.

All of the above items and example of synergy advertise the company and it’s films further.

Another major, most important, example of Disney’s synergy and cross-media-convergence, is its game parks! There are six Disney resorts worldwide located in California, Florida, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong and China and a total of twelve Disney parks. The Disney parks generate massive income and promotion for Disney, and include various rides which interest all the different ages and stages of life; ‘Star Wars Land’ for those who love Star Wars, ‘Cars Land’ for the younger boys, Princesses roaming around and adored by the little girls and lots of food and fast roller-coaster rides for the teens and adults. These ‘Disney Parks’ are massively supported, averaging around 157 311 million visitors in 2018 alone according to a source. Audiences watch the Disney films, visit the game parks, enjoy the rides, buy merchandise such as ‘MickeyMouse’ ears or ‘Cars’ t-shirts and then go home and watch the Disney films again, raising Disney’s overall income and the films’ success.

A classic Disney film is Moana, an animated family film released on the 23 of November 2016, adored by 90% of the reviewers on Google. In this film, Disney casted famous stars such as Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Auli’i Cravalho who are both exceptionally well-known who then assisted in the advertising of the film on their separate social media accounts where Dwayne Johnson has 183 million and Auli’i Cravalho 657 000 Instagram followers. Every time either one of them posted ANYTHING about the film, it was instantly being promoted to THOUSANDS and MILLIONS of people. Moana’s box office numbers equate to a massive $690.8 million USD, proving the success of Disney’s cross-media-convergence with this film.

Another example of Disney’s cross-media-convergence is it’s recording and then releasing of the songs from ‘Frozen’ and ‘Frozen 2’ onto music streaming services such as Spotify and YouTube for families to enjoy. Each listen generates income for Disney as well as further promotes its films and their success. Disney has done this for many of its films. 

Overall, Disney’s extensive synergy and cross-media-convergence has become on of its greatest advantages. As of 2018, Disney now occupies a whole three quarters of Box Office, with the three highest grossing films in the USA in 2018 all belonging to Disney... Black Panther ($700 million on Box Office), Avengers: Infinity War ($679 million on Box Office) and Incredibles 2 ($609 million on Box Office). This proves that synergy is exceptionally important in the success of a film - it builds awareness of what you offer and convinces people to try it out.

Where before only Hollywood blockbusters really excelled, Internet has actually levelled the playing field to some extent. Synergy and cross-media-convergence have almost been overcome by the internet. Traditionally, Indi films had and still have lower production budgets and less finance available for them to integrate with other companies and afford the extensive advertising of their film, which is why Blockbusters have mainly excelled previously. However, the rise of the internet revolutionised the way in which we consume media with 4338 billion of the world’s population now being connected to the Internet today. Before the internet, choices were limited and audiences of media were unified, however due to fragmentation audiences are no longer unified but rather split across many different platforms whether it be Youtube, Netflix or Hulu. Millions of people consume media daily, with Netflix having over 75 million users worldwide in 2016 and Neon experiencing a “BOOM” in subscriber growth according to a source, with there being 3.81 billion social media users worldwide today. This has also meant that today films can be advertised online. NZ films, Indi films, large blockbuster films, Hollywood films, art-house films.... they’re all advertised online today with social media and the internet booming in numbers. ‘Broken’, an NZ film (one of my case studies) was too, advertised online with its trailer being released on Facebook, and its Facebook page receiving 23 277 likes. Additionally, ‘Moana’ was also advertised on Facebook receiving 2 441 583 likes on Facebook. Films use their Facebook page as an avenue to interact with their audiences, spread the word of their films and create awareness. The internet and all its SVOD services provide a perfect channel for companies to communicate with other companies in forming vertical and horizontal integration partnerships as well as discuss items of synergy hassle-freely online, no matter how far the two companies are from each other. The internet is an easy, FREE way to advertise a film and is therefore also perfect  and suitable for Indi films which have lower production budgets. Another pro of the internet is Web 2.0, where the internet now  enables the audiences to interact with the media, to become active viewers and no longer passive. To not only be consumers of the media, but producers of it, too. It has caused the change from static web pages to dynamic or user-generated content and growth of social media. Audiences can now post reviews, comment, reshare, like, dislike. An example of this being the art competitions that were held online by “What we do in the shadows”, a Facebook page which reached ... likes - it attracted the viewers’ attention, stimulated interest and grew the films brand.

Although synergy is definitely a high advantage, smaller Indi films can now do well despite their lack of synergy. An example of this is the New Zealand film directed by Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi, “What we do in the Shadows”. Just like many Indi films, the production team of this film had a low production budget of $400 000. They were unable to reach that amount on their own and were not funded by a large production company, and so therefore funded the film through crowd-funding, reaching the target and receiving the green light. The film was a MASSIVE success, grossing $6.9 million worldwide, and becoming the basis of two spin-off TV series’ that are currently being filmed. Both directors who were not very famous back then have grown into major Hollywood figures, with both being apart of the massive Hollywood Blockbuster, Moana - Jermaine Clement becoming the voice of the crab in the film. This film is an example of a regular NZ, Indi film which was able to reach great heights despite it not being funded by a production company. 

The directors of this film had an excellent marketing strategy: they predominantly used the internet to advertise their film. They were funny online, posting jokes and humorous slogans on their Facebook page to generate interest. They did interviews with ANYONE who asked, leading people to believe that they were kind and humble, then causing them to support the film. They changed the city sign from “Wellington” to “Vellington”, an excellent marketing idea, as thousands of people drove past that sign daily and would most probably have researched what it meant and what it was all about. The marketing team of this film successfully generated hype and buzz for their film by keeping their audience engaged, reaching 197000 hits/likes on Facebook.

Ancillary rights have lead to simultaneous releases where companies now release films on both SVOD services and the cinema at the same time. As proven by “What we do in the Shadows”, anyone can actually release a film on SVOD services such as Netflix, for example, and excel. However, it still remains that it is far easier for large conglomerates such as Disney to succeed as they have sufficient funds to advertise more extensively through partnering with other companies such as Warner Bros - generating a larger awareness of their product which may be difficult for Indi and NZ films to compare to.

In NZ specifically, a government agency known as the NZFC assists, supports and funds a certain number of smaller Indi and local NZ films per year, assisting them to overcome this threat or intimidation caused by the large Hollywood blockbusters and conglomerates, making available to them opportunities to partner with other large companies to form items of synergy and cross-media-convergence. With New Zealand’s population being a low 4.886 million in 2018 compared to the USA’s large population being of 328.2 million in 2019, the large Hollywood films already have a larger audience to promote their movies to, whereas the Kiwi films may receive less support because of a smaller population. According to its website, the NZFC balances “both cultural and economic objectives to achieve successful outcomes for our industry and our people,” to assist in fighting this problem. It’s bottom line is NOT to make MONEY, but rather to promote and develop NZ’s local talent and the country as a whole, to overcome the problem of having a smaller population, to stimulate the economy and to improve tourism. The films it supports generally discuss cultural and ethnical issues, as well the Maori culture, which consequently spark thinking within the viewer. This is uncommon in Hollywood with most of their films having “typically successful” plot lines which the producers know generally do well. The NZFC has supported films such as “The Game of Thrones” and “Daffodils” which have both been successful WORLDWIDE, with “The Game of Thrones” being of $2.28 billion in worth! This, along with the film “What we do in the Shadows’ discussed earlier which grossed $6.9 million proves that despite their lower use of synergy and cross-media-convergence, NZ films are still able to be very successful. An example of horizontal integration and cross-media-convergence in NZ, is the collaboration that took place between Air NZ and “The Hobbit” film, where they produced an in-flight safety video which also flaunted New Zealand’s beautiful scenery. This clip was seen by thousands worldwide, receiving more than 12 million global views online. The clip was beneficial to NZ, “The Hobbit” film, and Air NZ. It exelerated tourism with more people flying, therefore more people using Air NZ and therefore benefitting Air NZ, as well as it advertised the film.

The NZ government can further advertise films by collaborating with companies such as toothpaste companies (Colgate) to form adverts on television. Perhaps the tooth fairy is flying from home to home to fetch the children’s teeth, displaying New Zealand’s scenery as the fairy flies, for example.

In my personal opinion I believe that people watch what they know most about... If they don’t know about a movie, how can they watch it? This is precisely why films by large conglomerates such as Disney do so well - they are extensively marketed, advertised and promoted and therefore audiences know so very well about them and their films. One hears about them on Spotify, Youtube, Instagram adverts, Facebook, the Instagram accounts of influencers (such as ‘The Bucket List’ family who have 2.4 million followers on Instagram and are paid to post pictures about Disney films). A source from DGNZ was quoted saying, “Like the Australians, we do generally struggle to get NZ audiences to NZ films.” The fact that the markets are being completely saturated by the Hollywood blockbusters, makes it more difficult for smaller NZ, and Indi films in general, to obtain substantial success. Large Hollywood blockbusters such as ‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Moana’ which have massive production and marketing budgets of $150 million USD and between $150-175 million respectively seem to do more successfully than Indi films which have much smaller budgets such as “What we do in the shadows” with a $400 000 production budget. Jurassic World went on to gross over $500 million USD. This means these Hollywood films have spent much more money on promoting and marketing their film and spreading its awareness, proving my point - the more a film is advertised and promoted through synergy, the more successful it ends up being! The smarter the marketing strategy, the higher the success. 

In conclusion, although the rise of internet has levelled the playing field to some certain extent, the use of synergy and cross-media-convergence are definitely beneficial in raising the level of success of a film and are therefore a great advantage to larger production companies and conglomerates such as Disney which have the large funds to afford them.


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