Social Media, Catching Fire

Catching Fire, the second film of The Hunger Games series, made good use of social media platforms to engage its (primarily teenagers and young adult) audience in the run up to its release. An interactive website was created. This website connects all its social media presences together by providing links to them. The website serves its own purpose too by allowing fans to create a username and login in order to gain full access to the vast array of media that the website has to offer. There is an option to access the website as a guest however many of the features are unavailable to guest users. 

Shown above is the official Catching Fire film Facebook page, registered as being a movie. This is a run-of-the-mill promotional page. In contrast to this is the official promotional Facebook page for The Capitol, shown below. Part of the fictional world of The Hunger Games this page has nonetheless been registered as being an 'organisation' in the same way that legitimate real organisations on Facebook have their pages registered as. The Capitol PN page is therefore a clever promotional method of allowing the fans to be absorbed into the fictional world. Seen in the cover photo of the page is message from the Capitol stating that all citizens must register for the quarterly census, with directions to the already discussed Capitol PN website, which will in turn direct the fan to go and look at the other social platforms. 

 Registering as a user results in being allocated a District from the fictional world of Panem, and in turn being allocated a district results in the incentive to follow/like the official page for your District across social media. For example there is a separate Facebook and Twitter page for each District. Instagram was also used for both a normal promotional fan account and an in-character account Capitol Couture.  Youtube was also well used for the posting of trailers, exclusive clips and interviews but also for in-character District videos 'brought to you by the Captiol'. An example of which is shown below. 

The author of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, expressed her personal admiration for these innovative advertising approaches:

“I’m thrilled with the work Tim Palen and his marketing team have done on the film,” she said. “It’s appropriately disturbing and thought-provoking how the campaign promotes Catching Fire while simultaneously promoting the Capitol’s punitive forms of entertainment. The stunning image of Katniss in her wedding dress that we use to sell tickets is just the kind of thing the Capitol would use to rev up its audience for the Quarter Quell (the name of the games in Catching Fire). That dualistic approach is very much in keeping with the books.”

Sources and Further Reading
http://www.wired.com/2013/11/catching-fire-marketing/
http://adage.com/article/madisonvine-news/social-media-twitter-makes-breaks-movie-marketing/139444/
https://www.google.co.uk/searchq=twitter+film+advertising&source=lnms&sa=X&ei=pYRhU6TXKsWjO8O0gPgE&ved=0CAUQ_AUoAA&biw=1600&bih=799&dpr=1