Filmteractive: One Platform, Two Languages, Multiple Needs - Brand Journal Case Study

Filmteractive 2016 was held on 28-29 September 2016 at the Lodz Film School. The sixth edition of the event was devoted to interactive communication with special attention paid to the best brand-promoting projects (content marketing and branded content), as well as the two hottest topics of the year: millennials and virtual reality. The Festival’s mission is to educate the advertising industry in Poland by providing inspiration, building networking platforms, and connecting startups with representatives of brands and venture capital firms.

Media Klaster Foundation — an organization founded to create a cooperation platform for institutions and companies representing the film, digital, media, and advertising industries in Łódź, Poland. The Foundation’s operations facilitate cooperation, establishing contacts, and joint projects, and, as a result, promote the development of the industry. >> www.mediaklaster.pl

Deloitte Digital – strategic partner of the event.

Each year, we pick the most interesting case studies from all over the world and invite their authors to share their knowledge and experience with the event’s participants. Our speakers are delegates representing different fields—marketing, business, and culture. Their mission is to inspire the Filmteractive Festival’s guests and convey practical knowledge, thus allowing to turn business ideas into creative solutions.

As in the previous years, the Lodz Film School hosted many acclaimed speakers representing popular brands and media. In 2016, we were proud to invite and accommodate : Alan Schulman (Deloitte Digital), Maksymilian Litwinow (Castorama), Artur Pacuła (Disney), Łukasz Kosuniak (Samsung), Morgan Bouchet (Orange), Dan Biddle (Twitter), Patrycja Venulet and Jan Kisielewski (Stratosfera by Deloitte), Kasia Kiefert and Dawid Marcinkowski (The Kissinger Twins), Ewa Wolska-Rzewuska and Rafał Mietelski (Vice Media), Piotr Iwanicki (Superhot), Dorota Żurkowska-Bytner (Discovery Networks), and Joeri Van den Bergh (Gen Y Expert InSites Consulting). The 2016’s edition of Filmteractive featured nine presentations, a closed workshop, and a discussion panel. The event’s host was famous blogger and industry trendsetter Artur Kurasiński.

The 2016’s edition of Filmteractive attracted some 315 guests from both Poland and other countries, including France, Italy, Germany, UK, Australia, and the United States.

The Filmteractive Festival is addressed to a wide range of stakeholders, in particular:

Lack of a platform which would provide all interested journalists with the information they need in a simple, transparent, and attractive manner.

A brand new website with refreshed KV—filmteractive.eu—is available in two language versions, Polish and English. It features all the information related to the organization of Filmteractive, together with a detailed program of the event, market submission conditions, as well as the bios of festival’s speakers and jury members.

In 2016, we started using the latest PR tool—Prowly—and launched a Brand Journal to collate all festival communication channels in one place. At press.filmteractive.eu users could observe social media chatter about the festival, and, additionally, easily access all the press releases. All this facilitated the work of media representatives. The festival’s press office is available in two language versions, Polish and English.

From 2016 on, with both a new website and Prowly, journalists may use a platform that meets their expectations. The press offices accessible in previous editions did not satisfy the needs of media representatives. Prowly basically provides a full package: Press Kit, Press Office, and Brand Journal with access to all communication channels of the event. All events that are officially attached to the website meet the needs of both the Filmteractive marketing/PR team and collaborating editorial offices or media representatives who use our content.

The Brand Journal is truly a reflection of the festival’s goals and objectives: interactive communication, modernized approach to building relationships, and creative uses of new technologies. My starting point is that a coherent communication about not only the brand itself but also the event and conferences can only be attained if it reflects the ideas underlying it in its every form.

The use of Prowly tools seems even more justified to me, as the festival features, among other things, a part called the Filmetarctive Market. This part was developed for the creators of projects related to innovative content and technological solutions, whose submitted works are evaluated by an international jury.

All successful finalists have the opportunity to showcase their projects in front of the Filmteractive audience as part of the Innovation Zone, but primarily during the pitching sessions at which they are confronted with representatives of the advertising industry, investment funds, as well as marketers. The Brand Journal is for me one of those startup projects that are featured at the Filmteractive Market. And using it, as well as being able to propose suggestions for modifications that come to mind when using it helps to develop the idea, at least to some degree. But this is where the success of a startup comes from.

Throughout the year, the Filmteractive Festival has been communicated and promoted via social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. On fan pages, we posted news related to the organization of the event, media publications, photos, information about our guests, keynote speakers and partners, as well as some interesting facts on the event’s main themes. We also provided an up-to-date coverage of the festival. A special Facebook tab—Our partners—leads to the page with the logotypes of our partners and media patrons.

Interviews and coverage of previous editions of the festival are available on the Filmteractive YouTube channel. Current video materials from the 2016 event were also published there, together with a promotional video summarizing all the editions. The most recent update is a short video report of Filmteractive 2016. 

Additionally, in 2016, we launched a Filmteractive channel on Instagram, which supported and completed the communication during the event.

The festival was also promoted via Deloitte Digital CE social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and on a blog. It was advertised through Deloitte Digital (USA) global channels—Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, too. All posts from social media channels were promoted via the Brand Journal—a real-time interactive platform featuring all the relevant information about the event in one place.

We sought to create content about the festival in line with the following rule: it must attract the attention and offer compelling information, not just information. During the campaign, we sent 16 press releases to Polish media reps and 14 to foreign media. Check out some of the news releases we sent out:

Thanks to Prowly’s Story Creator, all information and releases form new chapters of a story about the brand. They rather look like a modern blog which provides a high-quality aesthetic and perceptual experience, while meeting the needs of the contemporary recipient of digital content and ensuring practical tools for making use of this content in the journalistic work. From the editorial perspective, the Story literally builds itself. It is created piece by piece, giving each fragment a relevant role in the Story. Quotes, images, infographics, videos, and links to websites are no longer just attachments, or some add-ons hidden in the appendix. Now, they form an attractive part of communication. And perhaps this is why later they are able to reach the proper publication orbit.

While working on Filmteractive, we managed to establish close relationships not only with business publishers (Puls Biznesu, Wyborcza), trade publishers (Press, Brief in Business, to name a few) or technological magazines (VR Hunters) but also with opinion leaders and renowned bloggers (Natalia Hatalska, Maciej Budzich, Adam Przeździęk, Artur Kurasiński, Screenlovers). Thanks to that, more than 20 journalists and bloggers participated in the festival, including representatives of media patrons of the 2016’s edition of Filmteractive. This year, we also plan to work closely with industry influencers.

As part of our communication activities, we coordinated active PR efforts in local, country-wide, and foreign media. Besides publications based on distributed press releases, we also published numerous original publications, interviews, and social media posts, especially on Facebook and Twitter. These were supported by communication efforts of the event’s speakers and participants.

Outcome: more than 300 publications containing Filmtercative content on the radio, TV, Internet, and Social Media.