Creative Agency: Deep Focus
Technology Vendor: Eyeblaster, PointRoll, Yahoo!
Publisher(s): Moviefone, Yahoo!, Fandango
In order to generate awareness for “KILL BILL” before traditional TV advertising began, Deep Focus developed a "teaser" campaign to build awareness among audiences that both were eagerly awaiting the next Quentin Tarantino film, as well as those relatively unfamiliar with the director's work. Because we just wanted to "tease", we needed to be clear and concise with our messaging. Using iconic imagery from “KILL BILL” (the Sword), as well as associating it with Tarantino, we were able to help raise the level of awareness as indicated by audience-tracking data.
Once traditional advertising began, Deep Focus supported those efforts by maintaining the creative integrity of the TV spots as well as introducing audiences to the film's characters sequentially. In the weeks leading up to the campaign, traffic was driven directly to the “KILL BILL” Website, where viewers immediately were prompted to watch the film's trailer. In these critical weeks, Deep Focus developed high-frequency, high-impact units to get audiences' attention, and let them know that “KILL BILL” was THE film to see on opening weekend. The week of the film's release, a massive road blocking campaign drove audiences directly to show times and ticket purchasing pages to increase opening weekend box office take.
It was extremely important that the creative units embodied the non-stop action and appeal of the film, while positioning it as an event. This holistic, comprehensive creative campaign was successful at not only getting millions to watch the trailer and TV spots, but also at helping to get them directly into theaters.
-- Ian Schafer, Founder, Deep Focus
No, Miramax doesn’t have it in for the Battle of Shaker Heights, but what a way to leverage one asset for another – in this case the Indie Project Greenlight experiment for the (then) upcoming Blockbuster Tarantino flick, “KILL BILL”.
The collection of online creative used to promote “KILL BILL” is highly consistent across both the wide array of online executions, and more importantly, tightly integrated with offline. The unifying assets – namely the sword and other sharp weapons -- cut through the clutter both literally and figuratively in a most original manner.
The Yahoo! homepage creative execution works best when user-initiated and delivers a seamless product that is impressively close to the trailer on television.
“KILL BILL” – Volume 1 was number one at the box-office on opening weekend with $22MM in receipts, making it the number seven highest grossing movie in October.
Bring on Volume Two!