MARKETING at FFF

In the weeks prior to the festival, we scheduled radio interviews for Diane and Chris with WUCF’s program called ArtBeat.

Postcards and posters were used to promote the film at locations targeted to our audience. We used the limited number of posters for more favorable locations and then the postcards for either locations that distributed flyers or small bulletin boards and community boards. Most of the higher level targets were either related to environmentalism (i.e. vegan restaurants and organic food markets) and art and culture in Orlando.

We developed relationships with community leaders that could help us reach more of our target audience. Among these people were Robin Wright, president of Women In Film & TV – Florida, and Tina Richards, Coordinating director of the UCF Arboretum.

At the festival, we tagged 8-track tapes (obsolete themselves) with the screening information for Obselidia at the Florida Film Festival and placed around the grounds of the theater for people to find. We also ported the movie trailer onto mobile devices such as a PSP, G-phone, and iTouch, which we then carried around and showed festival goers to give them a taste of the film. Lastly, we created the Obselidia, a mock-up of the book the film is about, and carried it around the festival for anyone to contribute what they thought was obsolete.

We were successful in getting people interested in Obselidia, but had trouble filling seats at either screening because they were not ideal show times. Nevertheless, it was a positive turnout. The audience that did show up to the screenings had a close bond with the film and thus enjoyed it thoroughly. This also made for a great Q&A with the filmmakers after the second screening.

Distant marketing (poster and flyer distribution to key locations) worked in its own way, but it's not what got our audience in the theater. Because of this, we were relieved to have run into PayPal issues that stopped us from spending money on our original postcard design.

We had the most impact on developing a core audience with the face-to-face interaction at the festival. The level of our interaction with people stayed in their minds through the entire festival week.

Social media did not play a very strong part in marketing the film. The Twitter and Blogger accounts we created may have offered valid information to the little bit of traffic that was driven to it, but we did not hear any response at any point about any of them. There were certainly other ways to utilize them better, but it was not a concern of ours since the pre-existing Facebook page for Obselidia was well-maintained. We began to drive traffic to that page over our own.