To what extent does digital distribution affect the marketing and consumption of media products in the media area you have studied?

To what extent does digital distribution affect the marketing and consumption of media products in the media area you have studied?

Digital distribution is a distribution (providing / giving out) method in which media content is delivered without the use of physical media (E.g. Film tape.) These distribution programs are now being improved more to offer more secure on-line transactions, consumer licensing and anti-piracy measures.This digital distribution method is potentially minimum expense, This furthers results into consumers getting goods cheaply, easily and with increased profits, this also includes an increased artistic freedom. Moving through into marketing section, this marketing method is based around the action or business of promoting and selling products or services. This marketing also includes the market research and advertising. Finally the consumption of media products, is where the sum of information and entertainment media is taken in by an individual or group. This activities can be interacting with new media such as reading books and magazines, watching television and films but also listening to the radio. 

To begin with, the Digital distribution affects the marketing and consumption of media products due to the rapid change of consumption from the consumers. The reasoning behind this rapid change, is because more consumers are now choosing to consume more media product files on the internet or in the comfort of their own home, with the home cinema surround sound instead of going out to public cinemas to pay money to generally watch the same film. There is now a high dependance on the internet for many. With the film industry taking this into account and having to consider promoting and distributing the film digitally on the internet, there is actually less exchange from consumers at the cinema, which means a lower profit. This profit needs to be raised again, which means the film industry needs to find a sensible distribution method which can be made and completed rapidly but also stay digital for the now dependent digital consumers. These methods are now; DVDS, Blu-Rays, VOD (Video On Demand) and on television. The positive outcome of being able to digitally distribute the product to consumers is that, the product can now be be given around a broader scale such as going world wide, but also being cheaper to transport the products to the consumers through DVDS e.t.c. or even on VOD, because the money does not now have to be paid for transport of actual film tape. More profit is then taken and saved by the film industry. Skyfall as an example had decided to keep the budget of $2000,000,000, before earning the profit of $918,000,0000 in just ticket sales before selling 2 million DVD copies in the UK alone, for a higher price than a ticket in the cinema. This digital distribution based on the consumers way for Skyfall alone, has shown that the consumers way of consuming the film is an extremely important based section as technology advancement has made the consumers advance as well, wanting a more appropriate method of watching the film, compared to having to make a trip to the theatre to watch a film. 

On the other hand, digital distribution through the marketing side is pretty well important compared to the way this digital distribution is consumed. With the old marketing style of posters being printed across sides of buses, or in the under-ground tunnel walls, consumers are now too busy with their travels to work or to important occasions, that this advertisement does not even get noticed anymore like it used to be when consumers had spare time on their hands to actually look around. With the technology becoming more advanced and consumed more in the consumers life, the film industry has too look personally into how their own product can be marketed digitally and become noticed. For example, when the consumers are only waiting for a bus in public or even on a train, phone technology has taken over their lives as every spare second would be spent checking the internet and social networking sites. This is a break through, for digital distribution, as they could create fan pages to promote a film on a social networking site, so the consumers could send in private messages or even public messages on the page asking for information. Google has also linked in with many digital distribution advertisement, which takes information from pages people have mostly visited, either on phones or laptops, before revealing adverts 24/7, linking to an appropriate subject or film. The positive outcome for this digital marketing across social networking sites and pop up ads or even trailers being shown on the sidebar or television when consumers are at their most relaxed, makes the both the consumer trustworthy and more believable to what this advertisement has to say, but becomes a cheaper and quicker method for the institution. With the institution also being already creative and unique for their advertisement and the payment to show this a lot cheaper than having to print on the paper, the only problem the institution has to promote their digital product with digital distribution, is by placing their advertisement in certain areas at certain times to attract the right target audience they want. For example, a film with the classification of 15, would not be shown around about noon for younger children too see, instead it would be placed on in the late evening at around about 9 pm for those consumers who have had work, to return home, relax and see the digital distribution of marketing, before wanting to see more of the film from just the trailer. Harry Brown for an example, was made a digital fan page for advertisement and received 1534 likes from fans and 66 consumers have talked about the digital media product and had 'tagged' them as a link to what they had to say. This all does not include the posts in which are made by the fan page, that consumers have 'liked' and 'commented' on.