With the challenges and curveballs thrown at us thanks to the COVID pandemic, Lodge and the Indy Film Fest team had to quickly readjust our marketing strategy in the past year to accommodate our new virtual platform. Rather than promoting on-site films (in proper theaters) and afterparties with chances to meet and talk with the filmmakers and their crews, we needed a new digital/social strategy that would allow us to communicate with our online audiences with a wildly more diverse set of tools and assets to keep our movie messages relevant and fun, while driving web traffic.
Squatch with your friends
Our new online viewing platform also enabled us to attract and engage its audiences outside of the Film Fest social and e-news followers, creating some new ambassadors and film fans along the way.
Indy Film Fest “STREAM”lined
This year’s strategy included a new branded web skin, a robust suite of social frames that could be easily customized for specific movie and online promotions, and a short festival highlights video we could use in paid promotional posts and online viewing. We also engaged the festival’s programmers and staff to help build out a more comprehensive blog, featuring stories and reviews (deepening our engagement with their social channels) about our 2021 line-up that could be re-tooled and integrated into social messaging, regular e-news updates, and grassroots communications/connections with local organizations and past sponsors of the Indy Film Fest.
And finally, we designed a line of official 2021 merch that featured our most beloved brand mascot (the Filmsquatch) pixelized for this new virtual world. And it worked.
Only 2/3 through the fest and we’ve already dramatically increased our paid orders and viewership engagement in this new online platform. As we say at the festival: Fest On(line)!
