Analysis of Inception: Magazine Covers

Another part of major film marketing which is carried out, is linking up with various film magazines such as Total Film - and producing articles and front page covers to promote the film (usually these are carried out in Exclusives).

For the analysis of the Inception marketing, I have looked at two of the biggest film magazines: Total Film and Empire.

Click the above images to view them in full scale

In each of the magazines, the front cover is dominated by the headline actor in Inception: Leonardo Dicaprio (who fills the roll of the main character within the film).

Empire: In the Empire edition of Inception, the main image is a high quality picture of Leonardo with a striking caption at the top of the page, "The Dark Knight Returns" - which was obviously a very successful film directed by Christopher Nolan (who also directed Inception). This will instantly attract fans of the Dark Knight to Inception, with a link being placed between the two. The directors name is clearly visible in the center of the portrait with the title being stretched across the width of the cover. I believe that the main feature of this cover is the image of Leonardo Dicaprio - a recognisable world-known actor who instantly draws attention to the film Inception.


Total Film: In the Total Film edition of Inception, the main attraction to the page is the redesigned total film logo - which doesn't change much - thus signifying the importance of this film and how highly they rate it - and this is just from looking at the logo. As well as this, across the middle of the page is a shining logo for inception - which instantly makes the film title stand out. Behind the title is an image of the main character in the film, Leonardo Dicaprio.

In comparison, I believe that the each cover is good for different reasons - with the Empire magazine playing off the image of Dicaprio where Total Film is highlighting the film a lot more, especially with the change in image for the title of the magazine.