The Empty Chair

Case Study

The Empty Chair is a powerful and deeply personal film that explores the aftermath of violent crime through the eyes of survivors and families left behind. Through emotional storytelling, it calls attention to the unseen pain and lingering impact that often go unspoken. With its digital release, the film aimed not only to reach audiences but to build a community of support, healing, and justice.

SEE THE CAMPAIGN IN ACTION

Visit: @emptychairmovie | Facebook Page
Learn more: www.theemptychairmovie.com

THE CHALLENGE

With a heavy yet hopeful narrative, The Empty Chair needed more than standard promotion, it needed a movement. The campaign had to capture the film’s emotional core while effectively mobilizing cast, community, and grassroots advocates.

Our challenge was to build strong awareness leading into the VOD launch, engage and grow a committed social audience, and inspire widespread sharing through a multi-channel approach that felt human and heartfelt.

Our Solutions

Vanquish Media Group led an integrated campaign that combined social media, paid advertising, and grassroots collaboration into a unified ecosystem. We started by crafting a custom brand and content strategy tailored to the film’s themes: loss, justice, remembrance. Our content calendar contained a mix of custom graphics, teasers, reels, testimonials, and BTS footages to draw audiences into the story behind the story.

We optimized Instagram and Facebook profiles for growth and engagement, amplifying awareness through posts, engaging story features, and collaborator tagging. On the paid media front, we developed and deployed strategic ad sets with compelling creative that emphasized emotional connection and call-to-action clarity. While doing so, we engaged with over 200 influencers, cast members, and true-crime communities, by providing toolkits, messaging guides, and direct support to maximize authentic and peer-driven reach.

The Results

The results spoke volumes. Across Meta platforms, our campaign delivered over 937K impressions and 135K link clicks with a remarkably low CPC of $0.037. Our video content alone saw over 520K 3-second views and nearly 200K ThruPlays, showing strong audience retention and resonance.

On social, we fostered a deeply engaged following:
Instagram reached over 25K users with 87K+ video views, while Facebook reached nearly 476K+. Community interactions remained strong throughout, driven by high-performing static posts and reels timed for peak engagement hours. Our grassroots collaborations resulted in over 60+ confirmed shares, with notable support from actors, advocacy groups, and genre-focused media pages, boosting collective visibility to over 414K+ additional followers.

But beyond the numbers, we helped create a digital space where stories could be shared, voices could be heard, and audiences could take meaningful action. For The Empty Chair, that’s what impact looks like.