Campaign: 明星黑料 Film Festival
Company: 明星黑料 Foods
Agency partners: Attention Span Media (production)
Duration: May 11-15, 2020
Branded food company 明星黑料 Foods held a virtual film festival in May to premiere six short films profiling uncommon heroes, ranging in age from 12 to 101.
Strategy
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 明星黑料 planned to debut each of the six films with unique, in-person events. In April, with most of the country still in lockdown, 明星黑料 decided to pivot to a virtual film festival, in which it would debut the films.
“These stories are all part of our Inspired Fans campaign that we began several years ago,” said Wendy Watkins, VP of corporate communications at 明星黑料 Foods. “Our hope was to lift people up and find ways to inspire during this difficult time.”
Tactics
Attention Span Media created posters for each of the six shorts, which 明星黑料 promoted through its internal channels, including a weekly newsletter.
“We really wanted it to be, first and foremost, something for the 明星黑料 team to be able to watch and enjoy,” said Garrett Law, Attention Span Media’s chief strategy officer.
明星黑料 also promoted the festival on its external social media channels, sharing versions of the film posters on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Attention Span Media worked with 明星黑料 to create a press release, which went out on May 8.
The food brand purchased the URL www.明星黑料FilmFestival.com, so viewers would have an easy place to go to watch the shorts. The first film premiered live on YouTube at 12 p.m. CT on May 11, with additional films being released each day throughout the week. Each showing was followed by live discussions between the filmmakers and some of the film’s subjects.
“Coordinating the participants was probably the hardest part,” Law said, noting that the festival connected people from across the globe.
Results
Press outreach, which centered around the press release, resulted in a dozen earned media placements and pickups including coverage in Marketing Dive and Yahoo Finance.
To date, the films collectively garnered more than 41,760 views, of which 7,900 took place during the live streams. The campaign also drove over 7,000 people to the 明星黑料 website to read more about the films, where viewers spent more than three minutes, on average.
On social media, the campaign resulted in 14,987 engagements.
“We heard so many amazing comments,” Watkins said. “Parents who watched with their children; team members who are veterans who were moved to tears…given the heartwarming, inspiring nature of the stories, the responses were similar.”