Digital Media Management partnered with Lionsgate for the underwater action thriller, Hunter Killer. The social media marketing campaign was executed leveraging the talent fan bases, creating immersive and informative creative assets, showcasing the level of the Navy’s involvement with the film, and utilizing gamified social content to make this movie a must-see-event for military and thriller lovers alike.
Our mission objective was to build anticipation and draw audiences to the film’s intense plot of rescuing the Russian President after a military coup. To do this, we built the level of threat and danger presented throughout Hunter Killer to familiarize fans with the plot, leveraged our talent, and then engaged our users by bringing their attention to the level of cooperation we had with the US Navy and the Department of Defense.
Building the Threat
Throughout the social media campaign, we aimed to show our fanbase the rising tension from the threat of a Russian Military coup. To do this, we utilized the DEFCON alert system within our creative assets and paired it with dramatic and action filled clips, while also introducing the main characters and plot of the film. By the time we got to DEFCON 1, the threat was imminent and fans felt it.
Leveraging Talent
Utilizing Gerard Butler’s star power, we created custom social media assets for his social accounts to promote the film. Additionally, we wrote scripts for his content capture day, which included Gerard giving facts about Submarines, and simple call to action countdowns for ticket sales. Our Submarine facts became our number one performer on Instagram. Talent specific content strategies were also created for our other notable stars Common, Linda Cardellini and Zane Holtz.
Gamified Content
To tailor to our younger audience demo, we created gamified social content to showcase certain tests that sailors must pass in order to be in the Navy. Using a mix of auditory, visual, and memory prompts, we put our fans to the test — and they were definitely up for the challenge!
To get fans even more excited for Hunter Killer’s release, we created morse code assets that went out across our social platforms and generated an impressive 169K impressions. This activation allowed our military and non-military fans to use their skills to decode a message which revealed our final trailer was dropping the following day.
US Navy Involvement
The Navy’s involvement in this film was right from the start and before the script was even written. To tout this, we used behind-the-scenes assets and interviews to showcase the Navy’s level of involvement and authenticity it brought to the film. We created assets that explained what a Hunter Killer is, while also supporting an in-world site that allowed them to explore the Virginia Class Submarine.
In order to achieve these objectives, we designed engaging social content, created in-world social media posts and strategies to allow an immersive narrative for our audiences that focused on Captain Joe Glass and his crew from preventing WWIII from breaking out. We successfully generated awareness for this campaign through a close partnership with the Navy and showed love to some of our nation’s most fearless heroes. We created custom content that highlighted the action, suspense, and accuracy of the film, all while bringing in an engaging layer of fun with gamified posts to create a highly successful campaign. Throughout the campaign, we generated over 86 million impressions on all social platforms combined.
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