2013 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) showcases everything from independent and regional short films, to cultural features and international blockbusters. Last year attendance rates were lower than expected with people preferring mainstream movies at the cinema than attend the festival. People were not relating to DIFF. There was a misperception. Our prime target was the cinemagoers, who we had to convince to become festivalgoers.

Creative Execution

Dubai is home to a large portion of cinemagoers who are entertainment-driven. Last year, people were still preferring to watch mainstream movies at the cinema than attend the festival. Since our target had a misperception, we wanted to use this problem to our advantage by creating the DIFF Film Personality Test. So now, based on their interpretations with the Inkblots, they knew what film genre best matched their personality and could buy tickets for suggested films at various Box Office locations.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

The truth about film is that everyone sees it differently. And we wanted to use this problem of perception to our advantage. Inspired by this, we teamed up with acclaimed Clinical Psychologist Dr. Raymond Hamden to create: 'The DIFF Film Personality Test'. A series of credible Inkblots developed to build interest for the festival based on genuine film-related psychometric results. What people interpreted determined the film genre they may be interested in before the festival actually begins. Campaign touch points then allowed people to either take the test or be directed to a list of films, based on their interpretations, for which they could buy tickets for well in advance.

Results

10,200 packs were sent out to Trade/Media organisations and handed out at a cinema activation. The campaign succeeded in changing people’s perceptions and behaviour towards the festival - recording a record number of festivalgoers and ticket sales in the history of the event. - Record number of ticket sales with attendance up 35% - Total package sales up 88% - Student attendance up 50% - Facebook/Twitter fans doubled to 34,765 & 30,861 - DIFF website received over 100% unique visits - DIFF mobile site received over 950% unique visits - DIFF YouTube Channel receiving 1,150,400 views compared to 160,000 views from last year. Almost 10 times more than the previous year.