The Case
The film production industry in Greece enjoys a healthy, steady growth with several Greek and international franchises being crafted and distributed with considerable success. However, the same cannot be told for the movie theater business, which has taken major hits during the past decade, with the most notable reasons being the rise of online piracy and of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. Village Films, having a very popular movie franchise in their hands (The Bachelor), were determined to go against the current and invest aggressively in promoting the fourth installment of the movies series. Aggressive, yet smart.
The Challenge
After 3 successful “Bachelor” films, Village Films decided to release a 4th movie (“The Black Bachelor”) that was clearly aimed at younger audiences and comprised a cast of personalities that had a significant Social Media footprint. The challenge was clear: How can “The Black Bachelor”, using Social Media as its promo spearhead, manage to bring Gen Z to movie theaters when they clearly seem to be abandoning TV and cinema for YouTube, Netflix and chill?
The Approach
We designed a holistic promotion strategy for the film on Social Media, with our main objective being the creation of hype and focus on our most precious asset: The Black Bachelor star actors (& actresses). The decision was to put our efforts on the hottest Social channels for our core audience (TikTok & Instagram), creating truly exclusive content and a gradual escalation of revealing film plot details, in order to maximize anticipation.
Our content strategy included: a) Protagonists talking about their character’s comeback, b) Film Universe 101 (for the new viewers of the franchise), c) film cast trying to emulate TikTok popular trends and challenges and d) exclusive backstage material right from the heart of the shooting. Last but not least, we wanted to ensure that we wouldn’t end up just “broadcasting” content, but that the fans and audience would become part of our promo campaign by opening a communication channel with them. Regarding activation timeline, the content editorial was organized in such a way that as we approached the movie premiere, the teasing would intensify, without of course revealing critical spoilers.
The Solution
With our usual consistency and – as always – a dedicated content creator in the film production process, we created original content for the platform uploading 3-4 TikTok videos per day, ensuring they are 100% tailor-made for the medium and micro-adjusting them to also feed our Instagram channel, which acted more as a satellite one to add incremental reach and engagement.
Additionally, we made sure to keep an open line with the film fans. We kicked-off by creating TikTok content with the movie cast reacting to user comments. Then, we carried on with organizing an extended, native Instagram Q&A session with them and finished at the peak of interest with a TikTok Live red carpet event for the movie premiere, making it the first of its kind for the Greek entertainment industry!
Once again, our approach rewarded us: the movie – contrary to predictions – managed to achieve a box office opening week similar to that of the 3rd movie installment. The official TikTok account, in a few weeks only amassed 11K followers and 319K likes, while Instagram followed with 1.5K fans and a Q&A session that recorded hundreds of fan-generated questions. As for the TikTok Live Red Carpet: 16K unique views, 5K concurrent users, 5’ avg. view time and more than 500 comments.
Showtime. The Imperius way.
