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Focus Features Babies

Baby-loving fans share their own baby pics in this UGC contest.

Background

In anticipation of the Mother’s Day release of the film “Babies”, Focus Features wanted to tap into the power of social media. The movie’s heartwarming scenes of babies in four corners of the world tap an emotional chord with fans, creating significant potential for viral spread. To make the most of this potential, Focus Features reached out to Friend2Friend through agency SocialTyze, asking them to create an engaging Facebook Fan Page with opportunities for fans to interact and share their own baby moments with friends.

Objectives

  1. Target and engage female Facebook users aged 18-44, who are likely to have an interest in the BABIES movie
  2. Build and cultivate a fan base, supporting the movie’s launch on Mother’s Day weekend
  3. Promote interaction with BABIES as a way of generating viral messaging and awareness about the movie

Results

Friend2Friend provided integrated and phased campaign services for Focus Features, including

  • Facebook Page 360: complete review of the content and visuals on their page, with advice on promotion, cross-linking, fan conversion, engagement techniques, and applications
  • A sweepstakes that fans enter by submitting their own touching baby photos or video content
  • A slideshow application that let fans build their own BABIES-themed slideshow with appropriate background music
  • A “Countdown Clock” widget for mommy bloggers to post, creating visibility for the upcoming release
  • A “We Want BABIES” vote counter widget that let fans and blog readers request movie showings in their city

The combination of engagement techniques on the Facebook page, user-generated content applications, and widgets for sharing throughout the web, created a self-reinforcing viral engine that steadily increased the fan base over the course of the phased campaign. In the two months prior to movie release, the fan base grew from 4,000 fans to over 38,000 fans on opening weekend. Users submitted over 3,000 personal photos and videos to enter the sweepstakes, and the BABIES applications drew over 12,000 visitors. Over 1,000 personal invites were sent to friends, and thousands of newsfeeds posted, generating over 2 million social impressions for the brand. Throughout the campaign and even after movie release, BABIES fans demonstrated a high level of engagement with high comment and “Like” responses to posts. Even more important, the Facebook campaign contributed to a successful opening weekend, with better-than-expected box office results for a documentary film.