The Role of the Distributor.

Distributors have the lovely job of getting a wide range of audiences for the production they will be working for. Although distributors get no recognision when a film is made, they're pretty much the reason the film will have gained any attention it may have got, no taking into to account all the ways people can entertain themselves in or outside these days, it's no wonder the job is actually extremely difficult. Not only is it hard to get the attention of the usual occupied audience, but when they do, they have to promote the production better than any other title thats been released at or near the same time. You can easily tell which films have large budjets, because they'll have large advertisement and publicity (which I'll explain in a moment) because they'll have bigger and better distributors.
Distributors main role is to find out everything they need to know about the audience they're attracting. First and most obviously, what is the target audience? young? old? couples? etc.
They could look at other films which are slightly similar and get information about their target audience, but as a whole they have to find out everything about their audience themselves.
They will also have to budjet the release of the film taking into account things such as the actually launch and the post-release. They will then go in organising the publicity and advertisment;

Publicity
Publicity is very important for the porduction of a movie. It can be used to create a word-of-mouth which is useful for creating a good atmosphere and excitment for a movie. The distributors publicity team will arrange for interviews to be taken, usually between memebers of the cast in the moive, artists which will go see the movie when in premier. Biographies and facts of the film, basically most things contained and interesting in the film will be created and given to journalists from the publicists and this is called a 'press kit'. Publicists can also get a wide range of critics to give their critical analysis of the movie. Also they will create marchadise such a t-shirts, mugs, hats etc. and premier, previews of the movie and much more. Distributors can also sometimes, not everytime, create  'promotional partnerships. Getting audiences who purchase something to do with their publicity, e.g. marchandise, a chance to win a competition from it to meet certain cast members or be takn on a tour around the setting.
Advertisment

This is a comunication through the production and consumer without any costs from the consumer so it is more persuasive to watch as it's free. This also helps for 'Word of mouth' which can create hype and excitement through things like a poster, which can link into social groups as they will be noticing these posters everyday and consult with their friends about it. Quite obviously the trailer itself is part of the advertisment and also creates word of mouth. Usually along side this they will create a wedsite, containing things such as movie shots and the trailer, posters, exclusive 'behind the scenes footage' and sometimes they may get people giving opinions on the film.

Promotions

Distributors will usual set out for an active approach to the audience for the ever so important media advertisment as this is the big contributor to advertisment.

Synergy is a good use of promotions and seems very much like advertisement, but it isn't. There is a difference, promtions can come informs of most things to do with the film, that aren't the film. Basically all marchandise is advirtisement right up until you buy it, whcih then turns it in to a promtional feature. When you buy a promotional feature such as toys, games etc. you actually give the production company a certain amount of that money creating more adverts and things like that. It's the sort of link between a seller and a buyer, but the link is only used for influencing or persuasive purposes.
Promotion can take form in the media aswell, where the advertiser pays for adervtisement on radio shows or tv etc.