The purpose of trailers in marketing a film

The first movie trailer came out in 1913 from the Loews Cinemas company. Soon after, trailers were adopted and used in all Loews theatres and later on, all cinemas introduced trailers. The company that created the trailers through the 1950's was the National Screen Service. From the 1960's, directors decided to progress in their trailers for their movie's, which evolved into stylistic versions like we have now called 'teaser trailers'. Teaser trailers are now often released a year before the film to create hype and entice the audience without giving away too much information. They exceed no longer than two and a half minutes, the maximum length which was constrained by the MPAA. Trailers are often shown in cinemas, television or on the internet like YouTube. Since audiences are becoming more involved with the internet, web 2.0 has emerged, which has allowed trailers to be spread around on social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook which help popularise the film to different types of audiences.

Trailers are also important because they reflect on the unique selling point of the film, which separates the film from others which have been released at the same time and convey the same genre or plot line.