Beatwax Blog

Event Awards 2011

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:56:00 GMT

Beatwax triumphed in the 2011 Event Magazine Awards on Tuesday night at the Camden Roundhouse. The latest addition to our trophy cabinet is the award for the snappily titled category of Best International Brand Experience for our work on the 20th Century Fox film: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The case study for this can be viewed here

Creative Review

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:35:00 GMT

This week's Creative Review features a very stimulating discussion piece on Guerrilla Advertising, which includes our Managing Director Michael Brown, voicing his opinions on the discipline.

The feature is written by Gavin Lucas, who this week publishes Guerrilla Advertising 2. A very handsome piece of print that also features two of our projects.

Global Smurfs Day

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:27:00 GMT

Brief: SONY pictures asked us to organise the UK leg of the global birthday celebration of Peyo: the Belgian artist who created The Smurfs. The celebration was the opening salvo in the campaign to launch the 3D feature film debut of The Smurfs movie.

Solution: The main feature of the celebration was a Guinness World Record attempt: The largest simultaneous gathering of people dressed as Smurfs in multiple countries! 12 countries took part in the attempt and the Guinness rules stipulated that the gatherings had to be synchronised across international time zones. Everybody gathering in every country in full Smurf attire at exactly the same moment in time!

The 02’s Live Quarter (capacity for 6000 Smurfs) was chosen as the venue, a true celebration was built around the proceedings with on going cabaret style entertainment (delivered by the Pontin’s Bluecoats of course), family entertainers including Smurf stilt walkers, Smurf unicyclists and all sorts of fairground type attractions. Magic FM’s breakfast show presenter Jamie Edwards played host to the whole event.

The two mammoth logistical tasks on the day:

Free Smurfs outfit and blue body paint were provided to the first 3500 people – we employed an army of ‘crowd smurfers’ to convert everybody into Smurfs within the tight four hours window from gates open at 1pm to the actual record attempt at 5pm.

A large pen was created for the actual count. The Smurfs had to file in through turnstiles, which automatically counted each entry. Everybody taking part in the record had to be in that pen by 5pm in time to sync up with all the other countries taking part.

Of course we needed to find enough Smurfs to take part:

Smurf recruitment opened with a wide social media campaign driving people to register in advance to take part at an official Global Smurfs Day hub

A community outreach programme to local schools, colleges and other stakeholders close to The 02 followed. The 02’s digital media and broadcast network was also employed to create buzz amongst audiences at their live events.

Regional and national PR campaign, tie in with Magic FM breakfast show, and a full page advert in the Metro delivered the final elements of the publicity campaign.

Results

16000 likes on official facebook page and a genuine depth of community debate and image sharing pre and post event

6000 people registered to take in the actual record attempt at the registration site www.smurfsday.co.uk

8000 people turned up on the day with 2021 of them in full Smurf attire taking part in the record attempt at 5pm

The Guinness world record was achieved with a total of 4518 people dressed as Smurfs across all participating countries – The 02 was by far the most spectacular, contributing to over 2000 of the total

Broadcast coverage included Daybreak on ITV, The Chris Moyles Show on Radio One and Something for the Weekend on BBC2

Print coverage has been achieved in Daily Mirror, Heat Magazine, Chat Magazine, OK, The Metro, Time Out, The Guardian and there are hundreds of listings and local features: A Google search on Global Smurfs Day reveals a well rounded communications campaign with extensive reach.

As testament to the effectiveness of the campaign, Heather Morris, who plays Brittany Pierce in Glee turned up to take part in the record attempt completely unannounced. See image gallery.

X Men: First Class

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:00:00 GMT

Brief: 20^th Century Fox International approached Beatwax to create a unique, standout global campaign for the origin film of the hugely successful ‘X Men franchise, X Men First Class.

Response: A unique X Men training academy was created on board the USS Intrepid: An US Navy aircraft carrier berthed in the Hudson River in New York.

A range of genuine mutant skills was taught to a select group of presenters, journalists and audience members of the media partners involved. The skills were those that the actual central characters used in preparation for the film:

Havoc: Can direct fearsome bolts of energy from his body. We used a Tesla Coil to connect X Men Recruits to 1 million volts of electricity to do the same!

Beast: His gymnastic and gravity defying feats are similar to those used by Free Runners and Parkour specialists. Our participants scaled the exterior of our ship from Quayside to flight deck using our special powers!

Banshee prepared for his role by using the USA’s largest vertical wind tunnel to create super hero flight. We did the same with our X Men recruits

Hollywood stuntmen helped our recruits recreate the fight scenes from the film

Great care was taken to give our experience a period Sixties feel, set against the film’s backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960’s. The USS Intrepid was chosen as host venue because it actually formed part of the US Naval blockade of the Russian fleet during the crisis.

16 international media partners were tied into the campaign to provide two huge swathes of publicity:

1: Deliver huge publicity drives across multiple platforms in broadcast, print and online, to find X Men recruits from partner audiences, who would participate in the event actually alongside a presenter or news anchor from each partner channel. We had to ensure our partners understood the concept; we did not want competition type mechanics buried in the back of their web pages for instance, they needed to spend at media or deliver free media collateral e.g. make trailers to drive interest and sign up; create on air features and insert them into prime time viewing schedules; leverage all of their digital databases to drive interest.

2. Each partner sent a broadcast crew to document the X Men First Class Academy experience of their presenter on board our aircraft carrier in New York. They made fly on the wall documentary type pieces for peak time broadcast back in their respective home markets, actually in the release weekend of the film in each territory. Genius!

Outcome £22 million (55 times the cost of project) of free media value delivered in 16 markets: This included the USA, India, South East Asia, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia and a host of smaller markets as diverse as Serbia, the United Arab Emirates, The Philippines and Holland

MTV made a 30-minute show about the experiences of their presenter at our event. This was shown in 83 markets globally.

Similar pieces appeared on Channel v (Phillippines), National Geographic (SE Asia).

Capital Radio in the UK made a live breakfast show broadcast actually on board our aircraft carrier; Saturday Morning breakfast presenter Dave Berry underwent X Men Training specially adapted to best suit radio broadcast

Top film blogger Joe Utichi was also invited to document his experience at the academy as the centre piece of an online campaign

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:03:00 GMT

Brief: 20^th Century Fox International approached Beatwax to create a unique, standout global campaign for the next release in the hugely successful ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ franchise – ‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’

Overview: Our response: Create a working and sea worthy replica of the Dawn Treader and take to the high seas with a totally amateur crew of mums, dads and their children! http://www.vimeo.com/19165597

Response:
The objective was to create two huge swathes of publicity:

The first being well in advance of the film’s release – the box office success of the first film in the franchise had been huge, a genuine global success, the second had mixed results and under performed generally. Fox wanted to restore the magic of Narnia for the third film and begin to create excitement and anticipation at media, as the preceding film had also been panned critically, we all realised we would need some time to rebuild the magic, hence a long campaign. What better way to restore that Narnian magic, than bring the film’s central asset, The Dawn Treader, to life in the real world!

We reached out to the biggest broadcasters in 12 major markets and tied in partnerships that would deliver huge publicity drives across multiple platforms in broadcast, print and online, to find international family groups to make up our crew. We had to ensure our partners understood the concept; we did not want competition type mechanics buried in the back of their web pages for instance, they needed to spend at media or deliver free media collateral to find our crew e.g. make trailers to drive interest and sign up; create on air features and insert them into prime time viewing schedules; leverage all of their digital databases.

The second part of our deal with them, gave us the second swathe of our publicity campaign: Once we had our families selected, we would bring them to the UK for training in sailing what was essentially a 3 mast, replica 15th century sailing galleon. They would then be sent off on a voyage in the Atlantic lasting two weeks on a genuine Narnian quest! This obviously would make for a great TV show, which is exactly what it became:

Each partner sent a broadcast crew with their family group. They made fly on the wall documentary type pieces for peak time broadcast back in their respective home markets, actually in the release weekend of the film in each territory. Genius!

Results: £22 million (55 times the cost of project) of free media value delivered in 12 markets: This included the USA, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Scandinavia.

The partners included Nickelodeon (USA), Gulli TV (France), Sky One (Germany), National Geographic (Italy), Channel 5 (UK)

Coverage outside of the partners included an extended BBC 1 News piece in the UK, mainstream news on ABC news and Fox News (obviously) in the USA

The Narnian franchise has a very dedicated and passionate global fan base – these groups were catered for by the inclusion on the voyage of Narniafans.com. The leading blog site in Narnia terms – daily filmed exploits of the editors’ adventures were uploaded to the blog and were watched, liked and tagged by Narnian fans worldwide. Their support was very positive (and crucial) considering the second film had disappointed them tool

Awareness was measured in 6 of the markets by Vizeum (Fox media agency) following the first phase of the campaign. The film had been tracking low outside of Narnia fan groups. Post this activity; awareness had been raised by 42% with over 90% intention to see. (Ian Morton, VP Fox marketing Europe).

The campaign with the Dawn Treader followed through into the international release campaign for the DVD of the film in late April 2011. For this, we bought the vessel up the Thames and into St Katherine’s Dock for the international press call. Journalists from as far afield as the USA, Japan and Australia were present.

Rio

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:14:00 GMT

Brief: 20^th Century Fox International approached Beatwax to create a unique, standout multiple partner campaign for the Russian, Greek and UK markets to deliver compelling AV footage around an experiential event

Response: Blu’s Route to Rio

Rio’s central character is a rare blue macaw called Blu. He is supposedly the last of his kind. When a female is discovered in Rio, plans are hatched to take Blu from his small town home of Moose Lake Minnesota to Rio to meet her. There is one problem: A lifetime living in domesticity and a lack of confidence has left Blu unable to fly! Needless to say, after an amazing adventure on route to Rio, he eventually flies AND gets the girl!

We created a race from Moose Lake Minnesota (a real place) to Miami, and then onto Rio! On route our racers would be given the skills to fly! They were pushed out of aeroplanes over Minneapolis (wearing parachutes), given the controls of a light aircraft over Atlanta; taught confidence boosting skills such as learning to Samba and performing that dance to a live audience in Jacksonville, or performing Capoeira in Chicago. Racers had to use their initiative to get across country; we broke the route up into 7 legs and gave them checkpoints at which they needed to arrive at specific times and dates. After that they were on their own armed with an iPad and a small cash allowance.

Whichever racer amassed the most points (racers were graded in the flight tasks and in route planning skills), would go on to Rio to complete one final task – hang gliding from the Cocavarra – just as Blu does in the film!

Outcome:

US news broadcaster NBC tracked the journey at key points on route and delivered this amazing 8 minute news piece live from Moose Lake at the start of the journey:

MSN created a wide UK and European campaign highlighting the daily exploits of their film correspondent Ed Holden, and his UK teammate - CBBC news presenter UK John Watson. This featured multiple blog posts, social media support and advance recruitment to galvanise MSN customers to follow Ed and John across continent.

Russian TV partner MKTB and Greek broadcaster ANT1 delivered a total $450K campaign to find two participants from amongst their audience in their respective markets. An extensive advance publicity drive across platform ensued to find their participants. This was followed up with guaranteed broadcasting of the experience on each channel using edited footage we supplied to them as the event unfolded on a daily basis.

Gnomeo & Juliet

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:18:00 GMT

Brief: Entertainment One wanted us to compliment their campaign to launch Gnomeo and Juliet in the UK with a stand out, tongue in cheek publicity stunt.

Response: Commuter Gnomes

This particular property gave us license to create a very humorous idea that we felt would provide an irresistible shot for picture editors. We created a world first gnome flash mob at Liverpool Street Station. An army of commuter gnomes taking a diversionary break from their tedious commute to work in the cities gardens and rockeries, while ordinary humans slept!

5000 gnomes were involved in the set up of a through the night photo shoot on the main concourse and platforms at Liverpool Street to create a temporary shortage of the tiny garden ornaments in the UK. Gnomes were sourced from as far afield as the USA and China, including bespoke commuter gnomes using mobile phones, carrying laptops or rushing to meetings holding a brief case!

After the shoot, the gnomes dispersed back to the provinces. 1000 of them were found queuing patiently in single file at the doors of the Manchester Evening News waiting for staff to arrive in the early hours. Several hundred were spotted in Glasgow, with others cropping up in Leeds, Bristol, Southampton and Cardiff

Results:

Photo feature and in cinema message on page three in the Evening Standard the next day to reach 650,000 readers in one hit

Manchester Evening News replicated the feature and also showed shots of the Gnomes dispersed in about Manchester in print and online

The Sun ran a feature on the new gnome craze sweeping Britain brought on by the film, and featured our Liverpool Street shoot heavily in feature.

Other major print outlets featured heavily online with photo and in cinema messages in The Metro, The Mirror, The Mail and picture of the day in The Telegraph. A Google search on Gnome Flash Mob Liverpool St brings up 100s of entries across Twitter, facebook, blog sites, film fan sites and regional news sites

Broadcast coverage appeared in talk ups in news shows on Heart FM, Radio Jackie and BBC Radio Leeds

ROI: £322K media value.