San Sebastian’s Film Festival Event
Turner Broadcasting System
Issue 4 | July 2008
Agency
Vitruvio Leo Burnett
Creative Team
Rafa Antón - Executive Creative Director;Javier Álvarez - Creative Director;Santiago Saiegh - Copywriter;Francisco Cassis - Copywriter;Ricardo Sáez - Art Director
Production Team
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Other Credits
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Date
September 2006
Background
The problem was that TCM had an old image related to black and white movies. Without changing the product, the task was to turn this weakness into their strength.
Idea
Based on the insight that we are all guilty of not having seen a great movie, the agency developed a new concept for TCM: ‘The films you should have seen by now’. The idea was that the campaign would lift the lid on everyone who hadn’t seen one of cinema’s classics. The campaign was launched at the San Sebastian Film Festival, one of the most important film festivals worldwide and the most important for the Latin American and Spanish markets. TCM chose to sponsor the festival, and to make an aggressive push that included surprising guerrilla stunts as well as outdoor and print executions over the course of the festival week.
A car with graffiti accusing the driver of not having seen a classic film drove around town close to the festival’s venue. A large bed sheet was draped from a window across from the venue accusing the downstairs neighbour. Stickers saying ‘I have never seen’ with a blank space for their own confessions were given out to festival attendees (actors, directors, critics). The print element, using the festival’s proprietary media, reinforced the ambient activity, with various executions showing street graffiti (a car, a sheet, a shop’s front door) singling out those shameless enough to have missed out on the great movies that TCM shows.
Results
The activity turned out to be the most successful campaign TCM had ever run. It achieved thousands of Euros worth of free media coverage and in a record two weeks managed to change the perception of TCM from ‘that channel with black and white movies’ to the reference place for must-see films.
Our Thoughts
Number One in the new rules of communication is go where your target audience goes and share their enthusiasms. Turner Classic Movies went to the San Sebastian Film Festival and used guerrilla tactics to ask everyone there, ‘Which classics haven’t you seen?’ I haven’t seen ‘Taxi Driver’ but if I lived in Spain, I’d know where I could go to see it.