Water & Power Feature Film
"Water & Power" is a crime-drama feature film developed at the Sundance feature film Labs, which obtained theatrical distribution through AMC Independent. The film went on to obtain digital distribution on Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Hulu and Vudu.
Project Type: Digital Marketing and Ad Delivery
Problem Statement
Water & Power is an intelligently written crime-drama feature film that appeals to sophisticated indie minded audiences. The film’s market is also Chicano based. Although the film was developed at the Sundance Feature FIlm Labs, the Sundance brand could only do so much in order to help reach the film’s intended audience. The producers chose to theatrically self-distribute the film through AMC Independent in 22 theaters in Los Angeles and San Diego.m more effectively. In the process they also wanted to improve and enrich the user experience on their website.
Solution
Rather than purchase expensive TV ad space, the producers implemented a cutting edge marketing campaign that was ahead of its time for an indie film in order to target and serve the movie’s trailer to a specific online audience demographic based on their location relative to the selected theaters, there online behavior with respect to historical search terms, and their affinity for consuming certain videos on Youtube and other video platforms. The trailers were meta-tagged and customized with specific call-to-actions that redirected the viewer to the Fandango ticketing website for the theaters located close to them. The technology platform for this implementation was through Sightly.com.
Results
The two-month campaign (from mid-March, 2014 to mid-May, 2014) for the initial southern California release in 22 AMC theaters drove 1,177,000 full and partial views of the movie trailers.
Google Search popularity increased 950% in May and April on the terms, “water & power movie” and “water and power movie,” compared to February
Google Trends showed a significant spike in search volume and awareness, going from 0 in March to the maximum score available, 100, in May.