The Report

Creating a social campaign that utilized a sharp political voice and vivid redacted imagery in tandem with a nationwide experimental activation

Overview

Truth Matters. DMM created a riveting social media campaign for the theatrical and Amazon Prime release of Amazon Studios’ poignant political thriller The Report, starring Adam Driver, Jon Hamm, and Annette Bening. Tasked with highlighting the message of the film, we executed a tight campaign utilizing a sharp political voice, vivid redacted imagery, and statistics from the film, to create a sense of urgency all the while executing a nationwide experimental activation that engaged fans with the theme ‘Truth Matters.’

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Objectives

Leading up to the release of the trailer, we posted cryptic tweets, which teased the date announcement, using redacted copy. Each new tweet unredacted a piece of the information, with the final tweet revealing the trailer date. The teaser stunt garnered over 600K impressions and 10k engagements. Fans loved this secretive initiative, which built word of mouth hype leading into the trailer release.

Our campaign through-line focused around the film’s message that “truth matters,” and we designed our social content to educate, as well as evoke emotion and opinion from fans. We stylized our creative copy  across the social platforms to include strategically “redacted” words, and our creatives featured statistics, key players, timelines, and archival footage to emphasize the magnitude of the plot. Additionally, we embraced a professional and political demeanor in our social voice and tone in order to successfully engage with real political players, including Senators Dianne Feinstein and Angus King, as well as several active military Admirals.

On November 14, to eventize the release of the film, DMM managed the social extension of Amazon Studios’ nationwide news outlet takeover. In both physical and digital mediums, participating outlets featured fully redacted front pages of their respective periodicals, showing the drastic impact of government censorship. A platform-wide takeover aligned the wider media stunt and drove maximum awareness, utilizing Twitter’s Heart-to-Unlock feature, talent engagement, and a unique redacted conversation with IMDb, Vice News, and Amazon Studios. We amplified the stunt on Instagram by archiving four months worth of content and leaving only a “truth matters” grid. Additionally, we partnered with renowned artist Jenny Holzer to create a moving art exhibit that traveled throughout Los Angeles utilizing text from writer/director Scott Z. Burns’ script. 

Participating outlets included The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Dallas Morning News, CNN, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Fox News, The Guardian, Boston Globe, Apple News, and Chicago Tribune.

Results

Our results can’t be redacted, The Report had the highest opening weekend of any Amazon Original film on Prime Video to date. The “Truth Matters” digital stunt generated an impressive 21M impressions, over 11M video views, and 350K engagements.

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