The Great Alaskan Race
FEATURE FILM RELEASE
After overcoming personal tragedy, widowed father and champion musher, Leonhard ‘Sepp’ Seppala, steps up in the midst of a diphtheria outbreak in Nome, Alaska to deliver the anti-toxin and save hundreds of lives. With his own child’s life on the line, Sepp battles the impossible, accompanied by his pack of sled dogs, led by the famous TOGO.
The Challenge
With any independent film, the challenge is awareness and engagement. Gaining momentum leading up to the release date so you have an eager audience waiting to watch your film. And doing it all with a small budget and very little resources. This project had its own unique challenge. Disney announced they would be releasing their own version of this epic true story just two months after our film’s release. Even though Disney’s version takes a slightly different perspective and is less true to the actual events, we were still up against a giant from the beginning. We had to get ahead early and make our independent film well known and the story it shares even bigger.
our solutions
Our solution was to create an intricate and holistic creative marketing strategy. We were able to grow awareness and massive engagement after identifying the core target audiences, cultivating partner relationships, and programming customized branded content. By the theatrical release we generated an actively engaged audience through a mix of organic social efforts, grassroots cross promotions, and paid media.
Audience awareness begins with a thoughtfully designed website. An effective and sleek layout allows the audience to visit the page for needed information as well as engage with other content. For this campaign we customized several elements of the website, integrating video, animated overlay, theater listings, dynamic social feeds and more. With multiple promotional events, screening opportunities, red carpet premiere and more, the website needed to be agile enough for continuous and crucial updates throughout the campaign.
A full service social media strategy was created to identify and engage audiences through Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. With the film’s 6 non-profit partnerships, we were able to capitalize on cross-promotion opportunities and engage an extended network to drive mass awareness. By creating several custom assets and executing multiple giveaway and UGC campaigns, we cultivated an engaged audience allowing for substantial organic growth. Check out our custom social toolkit for TGAR.
We delivered over 5MM impressions to the theatrical release campaign through strategic paid media. We successfully optimized performance through the creative split testing of video and imagery assets, paired with optimal messaging to customized audience segments. Despite budget constraints, we leveraged expert data analysis for the greatest campaign impact.
A variety of custom content was designed and strategically deployed to gain audience engagement while simultaneously driving calls to action for ticket sales. By creating branded treatments for video and imagery assets, as well as giveaway promotions and social graphics, we built the film’s brand identity throughout the campaign and on multiple platforms.
the results
‘The Great Alaskan Race’ had it’s theatrical debut on October 25th of 2019. With the combination of paid media, social media and grassroots efforts, we were pleased to see huge cross-platform growth, totaling 6.1M impressions and over 258K engagements. Through our strategic and holistic approach to film marketing, we grew a highly engaged social community around the film that continues to grow and convert with the VOD release.
