An Intertextual Study of the Advertising Campaign of the Film The Day after Tomorrow: Corporate Structure versus User Agency

1) Introduction

When you pick up the June 2004 issue of the British movie magazine Empire, the first thing you notice is, well of course Brad Pitt, but when you turn the magazine over it says “It’s the End of The World…But don’t panic, we’ve saved you a front row seat!” followed by the title The Day after Tomorrow. For the people who haven’t heard anything about this film, The Day after Tomorrow is a film by Roland Emmerich about the alarming effects of global warming and according to Empire; "The Day after Tomorrow is the blockbuster to END all blockbusters..." Filled with special effects, this big budget film tries to offer and idea of what will happen if we don’t do something about it now.

As what usually happens with so-called blockbusters, The Day after Tomorrow was and still is heavily advertised in the traditional media as well as on the Internet. Apart from the official Fox website www.thedayaftertomorrow.com, Empire gave this film a lot of attention in their printed magazine and even more on their website www.empireonline.co.uk. Additionally, this film was used for other purposed as well. For instance, fans started discussing it on the Internet and Greenpeace even used the film and its official website to make the spoof site www.thedayaftertomorrow.org. After seeing all this I thought it would be interesting to look at the different ways corporations like Fox and Empire try to promote a film and how others react to it. In other words, I want to make an intertextual study of the film the Day after Tomorrow and analyse the interplay between production and consumption. Consequently, the main question of this paper will be “What are the variations of corporate structure and user agency in the promotion of the film the Day after Tomorrow?”.   

Above all, I want to find out how different corporations try to promote the film The Day after Tomorrow, how they make use of the Internet and to what extent users can participate. For starters, I will give some general information about the film The Day after Tomorrow and my research material. After I have done this I will do a textual analysis of the traditional Empire magazine and its newer form www.empireonline.co.uk as well as the official Fox website www.thedayaftertomorrow.com and Greenpeace’ spoof site www.thedayaftertomorrow.org. I will pay special attention to how the attributes and affordances of the Internet are used to promote the film The Day after Tomorrow, how the space is used and what kind of entertainment formats there are. Furthermore, I will try to find out what the overall aim is of the particular company and if they offer possibilities for participation. In other words, what is the interplay between production and consumption? After I have done this, I will evaluate these analyses and try to formulate a conclusion.     

In general, the Internet can help advertise a film in a newer and sometimes more challenging way than traditional media and many corporations count on Internet to help brand online communities for commercial purposes. With this in mind, I think this research paper can be related to issues like intertextuality. Different media, for instance, film, the printed press and the Internet all influence each other, sometimes in a good way and sometimes at the expense of one another. Besides this, the issue of functionality seems relevant as well. (Film)websites are usually created for different reasons and apart from commercial reasons, many websites try to offer entertainment, give information or a form of education or criticism.

The relevance of a research like this one is that it can hopefully provide new information to magazines, film companies and advertising (or marketing) companies. For instance, if people are more inclined to go to the cinema if they are able to see or read extra information about it on a website, or discuss it with other people, then it’s probably a good idea to continue with it. If not, maybe it’s best to try something else. In other words, does film advertising on the Internet really offer something new? Furthermore, this research could also offer some new insight in what ordinary people and different organisations (like Greenpeace) can do with an advertised film on the Internet.

2) The blockbuster to END all blockbusters

Before I go any further, I will first give some general information about the film The Day after Tomorrow. As mentioned earlier, The Day after Tomorrow is a 20th Century Fox film by Roland Emmerich about the catastrophic effects that global warming can - and possibly will - have on our living environment.  It is a big budget film which focuses on climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) who tries to warn the US Government for a coming ice age. Of course, nobody listens to him and it doesn’t take long before the whole world is struck by disaster, with tornadoes, floods and snowstorms everywhere. Amidst this all, Jack must try to stay alive and find a way to help his estranged son (Jake Gyllenhaal).[1] The film is partly based on the book The Coming Global Superstorm by Whitley Strieber and Art Bell and it sets up a worrying scenario that if we don’t anything about the greenhouse effect fiction can turn into fact. Even so, there are some people who criticise the film for being a “lot of hot air”. For instance, it only takes a few days before an ice age completely takes over the earth.[2]  

The Day after Tomorrow had its worldwide premiere at the end of May 2004 and in its opening weekend it grossed $85,807,341 in America alone. Apart from the production costs of about $125,000,000, approximately $50,000,000 was spent on prints and advertising.[3] In other words, advertising plays and important part in the overall production process of blockbusters like The Day After Tomorrow and partly because of this I believe it can be an interesting phenomenon to study.

2. II) Research Material  

My research material will consist of the film the Day after Tomorrow and four advertising resources. Since my main question is: “What are the variations of corporate structure and user agency in the promotion of the film the Day after Tomorrow?” , I will pay special attention to the participatory culture within these commercial structures. Moreover, I want to find out if these different websites offer possibilities for interaction and if people do something (innovative) with the official material. The first two resources are the British movie magazine Empire and its online version www.empireonline.co.uk. At first glance, the website is a combination of the actual magazine with extra information about numerous films and some form of interaction. However, I will only focus on the promotion of the film The Day after Tomorrow. Another corporate website I will use for this research is the official Fox website www.thedayaftertomorrow.com. As a matter of fact, Empire Online even offers a link to this website. Since it is possible to select a language I have chosen the “English outside America” version. The last website I will analyse is the spoof site by Greenpeace called www.thedayaftertomorrow.org. At first glance, Greenpeace mainly uses the film and its official website to make people more aware of the dangers of pollution and the greenhouse effect and to protest against corporations like Esso.

3) Theory

Since the majority of the resources I intend to use are film websites, I believe the following articles can be relevant for my research. The first one is Harries article Watching the Internet. In this article, Harries mentions that a lot has changed since the arrival of the Internet. Apparently it took some time, but nowadays the film and television industries spend millions of dollars on creating (appealing) online content. According to Harries, many of them now see the Internet as having the potential to reach a vast and global audience. Indeed, as I just mentioned, approximately $ 50.000 was spent on prints and advertising of The Day After Tomorrow. Even so, his main argument is that there now is a convergence of the ways in which viewers and users interact with media screens and he mentions three different modes in which people watch the Internet. The first one is ‘viewing’, the second one is ‘using’ and the third one is a combination of the two, which he calls ‘viewsing’.[4] With this in mind, I want to find out to what extend this can be applied to the web sites I am going to analyse. 

            In their article More Movie Advertising Moves from Newspapers to Internet which can be found on www.adage.com, Friedman and Fine claim that ‘movie-studio research has shown movie newspaper ads don't encourage people to see a specific wide-release film, and that by the time a consumer reads an ad in a newspaper, consumers already have made up their minds what to see’. Moreover, it seems that movie advertising is moving away from print, since approximately 71% of the advertising budget is now spent online.[5] However, Friedman and Fine also mention that movie advertising in the printed press will probably never completely disappear, because of ‘ego’ and ‘competition’.[6] The film industry still likes to see printed advertisements of their films and many film companies try to compete with each other whichever way they can.

Likewise, on www.exhchange4media.com the Mumbai Bureau has contributed to this discussion with the article Is Internet Eating into Print’s Share? One of their spokesmen, Nair believes that it is important for mass movies to still be present in the traditional media, but that movie advertising on Internet does have numerous benefits. For instance, it is relatively cheap and it can offer a multi-mediated experience. According to Rajnish, the growing importance of online advertising can be directly linked to ‘Internet penetration and changes in the film industry itself’.[7] This statement is further explained by Krishnamoorthy who claims that nowadays ‘there is a lot of synergy between movie going and Internet audience’.[8] In today’s information society, people want to be able to choose and to be entertained. Not surprisingly, nowadays many movie websites decide to partner up with other relevant (corporate) websites and try to offer extensive information and challenging options.

            This development is further explained by Marshall in his article The New Intertextual Commodity. According to Marshall, the cultural industries nowadays actively try to create ‘intertextual commodities’, to catch people’s attention, to enrich their experiences, and ultimately to sell as many products as possible. According to Marshall, blockbusters possess something which can be called an ‘event-effect’ or a ‘multimedia event’.[9] For starters, this means that many film companies create websites with extensive information, making-offs and trailers, as well as games and other collectibles, to deepen the significance of a film for the audience. Also, by offering links to related material, these companies try to surround people with everything they could possibly want and to persuade them to visit similar websites. Often, these websites offer related merchandise or relevant information. Or in his words, the audience ‘learns’ about a product through its associations in other cultural forms.[10] Consequently, there is not really one end product that companies try to promote, but a series of related products that are linked through a network of ‘cross-promotion’.[11]

Furthermore, Marshall claims that nowadays people expect to be able to interact and participate, so most film companies try to incorporate this into their official websites. Even if they don’t, many people will find a way to do something creative with the available material.

According to Marshall, these official websites usually serve as an ‘anticipatory platform’ for a particular film. And no matter how you put it, the film itself still plays a crucial part in the overall network.[12] All in all, most official film websites not only try to make people aware of the film, but also of its merchandise. Some even try to offer extra information and links to get their message across. To accomplish this, Marshall believes that it is usually important that they create an appealing environment, where people can participate and interact with others and where it is possible for them to do something with the material themselves. 

4) Method

In their paper “Testing Web site design and promotional content” Dreze and Zufryden have constructed ‘an analysis based methodology to evaluate the design and effectiveness of promotional content on the web’. According to Dreze and Zufryden promotional content can be defined at two levels. First of all, it can be seen at the level of a web page which may include specific product information or other promotional content. Or it can be seen at the level of a web site that consists of a collection of web pages which may include specific product and promotional content as well as potential purchase transaction information.[13] 

At first glance, I believe www.thedayaftertomorrow can be best seen at the first level, while www.empireonline.co.uk is more the latter. However, because I don’t intend to use any test subjects, my method will be somewhat different.

Like I mentioned before I want to do a textual analysis of the different websites and with that I mean that I will start with the lay-out. First of all, I will define how the attributes and affordances of the Internet are used for promotional purposes, how the space of the particular website is used and what types of entertainment formats there are. Then I will try to find out what the overall aim is of the company regarding what they want to promote. In other words, how is The Day After Tomorrow promoted? And is it this film, or is it something else that they want to promote? After I’ve done this I will take a look at the mode of participation. First of all, I will try to answer questions like: are there possibilities for participation? Can people give feedback? Can they write their own reviews? And are there messageboards with moderators e.g. Furthermore, does the site make use of viral marketing? For instance, can people send articles to their friends? And lastly, can people do something with the material?    

Furthermore, for my analysis of the spoof site www.thedayaftertomorrow.org I will take into consideration the four key questions that are mentioned in the article Fwd: This Made Me laugh. How viral Ad Parodies Impact Your Brand by Harvest. First of all it is important to find out who or what the target if the parody is. Furthermore, what is the intent behind it and what is the impact or breadth? And lastly, what is the source of the parody?[14]

5) From Traditional to New Ways of Advertising

My main motivation for selecting the Empire Magazine and www.empireonline.co.uk is because I like films and I wanted to combine this to Internet and advertising. Since I used to read the British magazine Empire quite often, I already knew it offers lots of information about films and that it even has its own website. At first glance, www.empireonline.co.uk is a combination of the actual magazine with extra information about all sorts of films, recent and older, interviews, trailers and the possibility for interaction. For instance, it has a message board where people can talk about more than just films and where they can form communities. But before I go into this website, I will first make a textual analyse using the method I’ve described in the previous chapter.

The June 2004 issue is packaged in a shiny cover and it promises their readers “a front row seat!”. According to Empire, The Day after Tomorrow is “the END of all Blockbusters”. And my first impression is that by using exclamation marks and dots it tries to heighten people’s expectations. Inside the magazine, the first two pages are entirely dedicated to the film The Day after Tomorrow. It’s an announcement of the - then - upcoming film with a picture of the statue of liberty being covered with snow and in big letters the question “Where will you be? The Day after Tomorrow. In cinemas may 28”. The film The Day after Tomorrow is number 3 of the main features of this issue, after the film Troy and something which is called the ‘Laws of Attraction’. According to the index “the freak weather pick is here” and Empire has a 6 page story of the film, with numerous photographs from the film, interview with the filmmakers and the actors and a short article by O’Hagan who tries to answer the question “could it happen?”. Two of the three enlarged quotations focus on the message of the film, while the other one is a quote from Quaid who mentions that “this is going to be every disaster film you have ever seen thrown into one”. Thus, I get the impression that Empire tries to emphasise the blockbuster potential of this film, while also trying to include some information about the message behind it. However, this information is limited and there is also no review of the film yet. Therefore, I think that the Empire Magazine is only trying to catch people’s attention, make them aware of the film and hopefully curious to find out more about it. Even though there isn’t an actual review of the film, at page 39 of this issue, they mention that if you “can’t find the reviews you came looking for? Check online for…” followed by the online address of Empire Online. In other words, the magazine sees their website as complementary to their magazine and tries to stimulate people to find out more about a film, like The Day after Tomorrow.  

5. II) Empire Online

The first noticeable thing of the website www.empireonline.co.uk is the clearly structured lay-out. It is divided in different frames and at the top of the page it says “the UK’s No. 1 Movie Website”. This is in line with the magazine which calls itself “the UK’s No. 1 Movie Magazine”. On the website there are eleven different options and one of those gives a sneak preview of the next issue of the Empire Magazine and offers more information about the magazine, for instance, how to subscribe online. Because of the frames and different advertisements, the website somewhat resembles the magazine. However, in here the advertisements constantly move and when clicked on, a new window opens.  

For my research, I believe the options ‘In Cinema Reviews’, ‘In Depth , 'Movie Trailers', 'Movie Must Buys' and ‘Messageboards’ are the most relevant, because those are the options in which the film The Day After Tomorrow features the most. Since it has been almost a month after its release, the film The Day after Tomorrow no longer is ‘The Week’s big release’, but a film which is ‘Still on Release’. In this section visitors can read ‘film details’ with general information about The Day after Tomorrow, the synopsis of the film and the opinion of Empire followed by a rating of four out of five stars. Furthermore, there are some film stills, which can be enlarged and the possibility to read ‘the full Empire review’.

The attributes and affordances of the Internet are particularly noticeable in the options ‘In Depth’ and ‘Trailers’. For instance, in ‘In Depth’ there is a so-called ‘Premiere Report’, with a review of the European premiere of The Day after Tomorrow, interviews with cast members and a photo gallery. Furthermore, there is a link to the trailer section of this website where it is not only possible to watch the actual film trailer, but also scenes from the film and interviews with the actors and filmmakers. All in all, this can enrich the experience of the readers of Empire, because most people appreciate it when they can read or watch something that they wouldn’t have been able to obtain before. In other words, the affordances of the Internet enable people to read articles, enlarge photographs and watch related trailers etc.  

However, Empire does not just promote the film itself, but also related merchandise.

For instance, there is a section called ‘Must Buys’ which offers a link to www.amazon.co.uk, so that people can buy the soundtrack and the book of the film and there is also a link to www.moviemarket.co.uk for the film poster(s). Both websites are partners of Empire Online, along with www.sendit.com, www.ebay.co.uk e.g. As far as I know this is also known as ‘synergy’. Furthermore, when visitors click on the name of an actor, they get a list of the ‘At Home’ section with (related) DVDs and soundtracks of previous films of that particular actor. This way it becomes clear that the overall aim of Empires Online, is to try and sell their magazine and to hopefully persuade people to go to the cinema, buy or rent DVD’s, videos, soundtracks, posters etc. In the end this is what they most likely want to accomplish. 

            However, they do seem genuinely interested in films and in offering people useful and appealing information. This may also be the reason why there are indeed possibilities for participation. First of all, visitors can become a member and create something which is called ‘My Profile’. Besides general information, it lists the top 5’s of people’s favourite films, DVD’s soundtracks and books. Everybody who is a member is allowed to rate films and submit their own reviews. This way, people can read what others like and compare tastes. Furthermore, there are messageboards where people can talk about ‘the world of film’. Although these messageboards are moderated and have certain rules, visitors are relatively free to talk about all sorts of things and I believe that people who visit this site often probably feel as though they belong to a community. They can share their views and advice each other and they can even leave comments what they would like to see changed about this website.

            All in all, I think the target market of Empire Online is young people who enjoy the world of film and who spend quite an amount of money on it. Partly because Empire Online wants to be appealing to people, they have created something which can be seen as a ‘multimedia event’. Like Marshall said in his article, most of these websites try to surround people with extensive information, to persuade them to not only go and see the film, but to visit other websites that sell related merchandise as well. In other words, Empire Online tries to please its readers by offering extensive information and the best possible service in the hope they will return and feel compelled to buy the magazine, movie tickets and merchandise. Moreover, in the case of The day after Tomorrow, they try to promote the film by writing a raving review and by giving people the choice to read and watch special reports, photographs, videos and other downloads. In addition, they enable people to participate in the discussion of the film, and last but not least, make it easy for them to order related merchandise.