Budgets for major motion pictures include money for advertising, which seem to be growing steadily. Concentrating on producing the movie itself, considerations such as an advertising budget rarely concerned producers of the past. Within the past two decades, producers who understood the business thoroughly approved budgets for marketing purposes. Television seems to be the reason for the increasing importance of marketing campaigns, which dominates the leisure lives of many Americans. An audiovisual medium itself, television provides the perfect advertising ground for movies. Early movie advertising on television consisted of a voiceover and a shot of the movie’s title, usually featuring a deep male voice. Marketing executives who recognized the value of television ads for movies clearly began to take advantage of the medium. Consisting of a quick, exciting scene from an upcoming movie, producers make millions on movie “teasers.” Also called “trailers,” people seem taken in by these vignettes. Trailers themselves seem to have become entertainment for some people, taking on a life of their own.
