Promoting a film using cross-media: Wallimage awardees share their experience

by Aurore Engelen

16/07/2012 - Wallimage last week discussed results for the first round of its Digital Promotion cross-media aid programme. Following its call for applications for its second round, the fund invited the first round's main awardees to come and share the results of their film promotion campaigns so as to learn from them.

Producers, but also cross-media service providers, spoke about their successes as well as any obstacles or strategic errors in their work. In this little game, Il était une fois une fois (produced by Scope and promoted online by Creaxial) came out top of the class, as it had almost exactly followed its original strategy. A few elements explain this success. First, the work was given to a sole service provider, who handled the campaign from the beginning to the end. This made communication and respecting deadlines much easier. Another of the strategy's strong points was its use of social media networks. Of course, they already had a great ready-made social media profile in the film's main character, Louis de Belgique (photo) , but it was Creaxial's dexterity on Belgian social media networks that largely contributed to its rapid dissemination online.

Participants at the feedback session highlighted a crucial element in this type of strategy. Certainly, funding is essential for action, but time, in all its forms, is essential for its success. Beyond time for planning (funding, production, screenwriting, the film's promotion, and its follow-up), the time that a team has available to work on a project is also crucial. Online communication is based on immediacy, and demands impeccable reactivity and availability. If time is money, it's also motivation.

At the end of this first round, participants, like the web, were abuzz with enthusiasm for, among others, Louis de Belgique's many friends and followers, for the Torpedo [trailer]'s website, and for Bye Bye Blondie [trailer]'s Mixtape app.

(Translated from French)