A great STORY is the start of every great movie project, and gives us as marketers a very solid starting point for our campaign. Alternatively, there is nothing you can do in marketing to fix a bad story. The only thing better than “a” story is a TRUE story. The Perfect Wave tells just such a story filled with adventure and hope, the true story of surfer Ian McCormack.
As stated on the website for the film, “The Perfect Wave is the true story of Ian McCormack who grew up surfing the waters of New Zealand. Wanting to dive deeper, Ian sets out on a journey with his best friend that will change his life as they chase the perfect wave. Traveling through Australia, Southeast Asia, and Africa, they surf incredible breaks and adventure, looking for the force that drives the world.” The film stars Scott Eastwood (son of Clint Eastwood) as the dynamic Ian McCormack, alongside Rachel Hendrix (October Baby), and Cheryl Ladd (Charlie’s Angels).
Why They Engaged FrontGate:
Anchor Bay Entertainment, a starz company, approached us based on our expertise in marketing films and DVDs that will appeal to the Christian audience, in this case to secure our public relations and advertising services.
The target audience for this DVD release campaign included:
-Young Christian adults (ages 15-25), who are interested in films and music.
-Christian women focused on the 35-55 age range, married, likely to have children, and who enjoy Christian films and music.
-Christian Bloggers with followers who would be interested in this film.
Campaign Details:
Key goals of the campaign:
- Reviews of film in the faith market
- Key interviews with a variety of cast and crew
- Promotional opportunities surrounding the film
- Social media outreach and promotion
The Campaign included:
- Five targeted press releases written and delivered to our various internal lists over a 3 month period, with 3 receiving additional push via PRweb.
- Multi-week targeted Radio ad campaign with 84 spots plus social posts on 100+ key stations reaching over 4 million weekly listeners.
- Digital ad campaign across key Christian entertainment sites.
- Social media posts were crafted and pushed out over various pages.
Results:
Our PR division generated more than 125,000 media impressions to targeted writers, editors, and show producers resulting in earned media reaching tens of millions of Christians through radio, television, print and digital outlets connected to the desired target audiences. A few highlights from our cast interviews and DVD review bookings included American Family Radio, BeliefNet, Baptist Press, Busted Halo, CBS, CBN, Charisma, Christian Post, Christian Retailing, Dove Foundation, Examiner.com, NewReleaseTuesday (exclusive trailer premiere), Surfer Today, and YES FM along with other key radio, television, print and digital media coverage.
Digital entertainment sites performed very well as expected, with top performers from our Ad Campaign including iTickets.com, NewReleaseTuesday.com, and ChristianCinema.com. Banner click rates ranged from .23% to .48%. Direct email ads ranged from 7-12% open rates, and 5%-7.4 click through rates, with one extremely targeted email spiking at 33% click through rate! With a modest ad budget, we generated 765,000 ad impressions.
As mentioned previously, Radio ran 84 spots over a 3 week period, along with social posts, on 100+ stations picked for their demographic match to our target audience, reaching over 4 million listeners each week during that period.
The campaign included more than 550,000 additional Social Media impressions across our partners sites and radio outlets.
Related links:
The Perfect Wave Official Website