By far the quickest and most direct way to pull an audience into the cinema, the poster has always been a diverse yet direct advertising tool and can often be regarded as art in its own right. Huge resources are poured into getting a poster right, particularly when advertising mainstream Hollywood films and they always form the key point of any publicity campaign.
20% of film goers decide what they are going to see in the cinema lobby, therefore a great poster can help audiences make the decision as to what to see and boost box office.
A poster that successfully sells the stars, director and genre of a film to a prospective audience can be deemed successful and some posters can even become as well known as the film they are showcasing.
Easily one of the most well known poster images is the original and much imitated release artwork for Gone With The Wind . Typical of its time, the poster highlights the epic nature of the film with a design utilising sweeping Mills and Boon style grandiose imagery. The torrid embrace of Gable and Leigh serves to signify the romantic style of the film while, lower down, the horses and riders highlight the Civil War context and literally underline that this is a sprawling epic. The fact that it announces that it has something for everybody (torrid romance, war, history) is punctuated by the dynamic colour scheme with fire blazing in the background. Vivian Leigh's gown, hanging just enough to cover her breasts is as daring as late 1930's standards would allow and even Clark Gable's unbuttoned shirt and deep gaze convey sexuality in a way that was a rarity in cinema of the period. The pose of the two stars became much imitated later on with films such as The Empire Strikes Back and The Muppet Movie delivering their own distinctive take on the original.
Although rarely seen now, the poster was occasionally complimented by lobby cards, typically in sets of eight, depicting scenes from the film to further entice an audience. With multiplexes on the rise the cinema foyer has more space to fill and therefore the far more visually arresting and elaborate cardboard standee has now taken over. Some of the displays are extremely large, incorporating motors, holograms, mobiles, window stickers and other types of materials to complete an elaborate display. The downside to this is that they are prone to damage and even theft by overzealous collectors.
High profile gimmicks are now being used to advertise films such as Godzilla , which used fake cracked paving slabs to look as if the giant lizard had trod on them. A skyscraper in Los Angeles was made to look like an asteroid had smashed a hole in its side to promote Armageddon (the building was soon cleaned up after a few near misses and a crash occurred as a direct result on the nearby freeway). Park benches in selected London parks were removed and buckled seats that bore the hallmarks of being sat upon by the giant Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal appeared. The animated film Madagascar used a complicated balsa wood display of packing crates containing the various characters set up in cinema lobbies to attract attention.
The common link between all these ideas is that they are expensive and often complicated and time consuming to set up. It can often be difficult for audiences to connect with what is being advertised and, as was the case with the Armageddon campaign, an elaborate stunt can be prone to misfire.
Despite these creative advances though, it is the poster that remains the key hook to increase audience awareness.
Mark Torr, a copywriter who has masterminded many successful advertising campaigns, says "It is interesting how many ways a poster can sell a film. The obvious use of the faces of stars and big, above the title names draws in audiences who like a particular performer."
"It is fascinating how the posters for Jerry Maguire and Mission Impossible, which were both released within the space of a year, use Tom Cruise's distinctive profile with only a smile to signify a difference in his face. This is a fairly old fashioned way of selling a film, basically just using the stars persona in order to appeal to the audience and little else. There have been very few stars who you can do that with, Tom Cruise is currently the only one that studios will consistently take the risk with."
"Brand recognition is another method of selling the product, with the poster for Ghostbusters using a distinctive logo to sell the film. The 1980's represents this idea coming into the fore as design becomes more and more important. The logo is a simple yet strong graphic image that is seen in the actual film on the side of the car and on the sleeve of the Ghostbusters uniforms. It is used in the same way that the distinctive Jurassic Park logo is used in that film, with the design featured in the film itself. This shows how soon in the creative process the logo gets decided upon. The logo is also used as part of the title text, reinforcing itself upon the viewer. As a result it is still a recognised brand today despite being over twenty years old."
"I think one of the most successful campaigns was the one launched for Ridley Scott's Alien. As his background is in advertising, that helped create a great campaign. The film didn't have any major above the title stars and there was no way to sell the film other than being creative with the concept. The egg cracking on the poster was tied in with the trailer which used the same motif. This created a sense of mystery and horror, challenging the audience to come and see the film and find out what is in the egg? The decision to keep the creature off the poster made the film a must see. Similarly the poster for Gremlins did the same job. The design which showed a boy holding a box with the furry hands poking out and bright eyes created a demand. People wanted to see what was in the box and to do so they had to pay to see the film. The link between both of these films is that they did not have huge stars but they both had great concepts that were translated quite brilliantly onto the poster and they both wisely used a less is more approach."
"The other helpful facet in marketing these films is the use of a great tagline. Simply a phrase that sums up the film in a memorable way like 'In Space No One Can Here You Scream.' It tells you exactly what the film is: a horror story set in space. Similarly Jaws 2 delivers 'Just When You Thought It was Safe To Go Back In The Water' which plays on the sense of primal fear raised by the original film. It is essentially inviting the audience to come back and guaranteeing more of the same."
 
A badly conceived poster based around a star can often damage a films success. When Curtis Hanson's critically well received Wonder Boys severely underperformed at the US box office the blame was attributed to the poster campaign which centred on Michael Douglas and seemed to be trying to sell the film as a quirky comedy. The trailers and TV spots overused a subplot involving a dead dog, making the film appear to indistinguishable from the other gross out slapstick comedies that were popular at the time. All this was a long way from the articulate character based piece that Hanson had actually made. After it had inevitably bombed, Paramount studio chief Sherry Lansing who had championed the film from the beginning, and vice-chairman Rob Friedman, head of marketing and distribution, admitted to Hanson that "We could have done better by you" and set the wheels in motion for a re-release.
The new poster and print campaign captures the look and feel of the feel of the film far more successfully. The casual portraiture of the second campaign recalls the loose and amiable campaigns for Hal Ashby's '70s films such The Last Detail and Shampoo, films Hanson had used as benchmarks for the way they established an easy, nonjudgmental relationship between a movies audience and its characters.
Using the opportunity to use positive critics quotes that underlined that the film had been lauded and was even a potential Oscar contender, the new campaign gave the film a new lease of life. The new campaign was so different that it felt like it was heralding the release of a new film, rather than a second chance.
 
Andy Wickes of leading design company Jellybean Creative cites the 1996 campaign for the UK release of Danny Boyle's Trainspotting as a creative high point in design. The campaign was overseen by Rob O'Connor and Mark Blamire of Stylorouge.
"The poster was a great example of using star power without the stars. It conveyed such a strong sense of attitude that it didn't matter that no one in the cast had made it big at that point. The poses of the cast members instantly conveyed an aura of cool, as if they were stars. The showy body language has a sense of fun, as if this is the gang to be part of. The film was released during the 'Cool Britannia' period when British film, music and fashion seemed to briefly take over the world."
"On what is otherwise just a black and white poster the orange band with the title on is deliberately eye catching, as is the use of the character names at the top. Instead of identifying the actors as commodities, the poster familiarises the audience with the characters even before they have seen the film.
It parodies the punk scene perfectly (the line up of the cast looks like a punk band) as well as being reminiscent of a pharmaceutical label, which ties in perfectly with the themes of the film. The poster adheres to the usual conventions of a film poster with the stars, the logo and the cast and credits below but it creatively uses the space to offer something original and, ultimately iconic."
"It was the 1980's when posters became much more design lead. The use of different, exotic typefaces and high concept ideas reflects the age of the blockbuster. The fact that everything became slicker and more design lead.
Trainspotting was the next step on from that. When you think of the film the poster comes too. It's all intrinsically interlinked."
"Although the film had at first seemed a difficult sell, the design was later adapted and used to promote a variety of products as diverse as television soap opera Eastenders, Gillette razors, Virgin Trains, Midland Bank, the Ministry of Sound Nightclub and even Odeon Cinemas Jelly Babies all adopting the distinctive style."
"The marketing department will work from a brief in which details of what the studio wants will be given along with details of the kind of environment that the poster is intended for. For example posters displayed besides railway lines will be longer than posters in bus shelters in order for people to get the chance of a good look as they pass.
The design team will try to organise a photo shoot with the main cast although actors availability is often a problem with arranging this.
Rough mock ups, often using old photographic material featuring the leads or even members of the design team are created and then presented to the studio.
All concept art is copyrighted on approval and the final versions are made.
It can be an arduous process to get the right imagery together especially when working to what are always very tight deadlines. The advertising space is booked far in advance and is therefore minute perfect as it needs to be in order to successfully launch a film."
One of the most influential of designers was Saul Bass. As Andy Wickes remarks; "Saul Bass was the most innovative of the poster designers. He broke away from using headshots and action scenes, instead using abstract images to convey an idea. The use of shapes and colour often connected with his title sequences creating a rare aesthetic continuity between the poster and the actual film. Vertigo, perhaps his best known poster, features the outline of James Stewart and Kim Novak caught amongst the swirls of a kaleidoscope. It communicates the idea of a thriller with twists and turns and complexities as well as being quite vertigo inducing when seen in close up. The use of red broadly hints at danger and is hugely eye catching."
In the age of electronic media, it is still the poster that provides the first point of contact with the audience. Film news sites always cover the unveiling of a poster and their message boards often contain fevered discussion on the merits of their design. It is the only source of advertising that has remained unchanged since it began because, when handled competently and above all creatively the format still works. Jonathan Wilkins
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