CLIENTS: Mel Gibson's Icon Productions, Newmarket Films (theatrical distributor) , and Fox Home Entertainment (DVD/VHS distributor).
CHALLENGE: Many industry experts thought Mel Gibson was, well, crazy, when they heard he was considering making the The Passion of the Christ film. They felt there wasn’t any money to be made with a violent, controversial, R-rated film about Jesus, one spoken in a dead language with subtitles and with an ending which everyone already knew. So, it wasn’t surprising that Gibson couldn’t get the traditional financing from any of Hollywood studios. Disregarding the naysayers, Gibson continued to pursue his vision, and invested his own money to make the film. Once the majority of the filming was completed, he started looking for a distribution company that would get movie theaters to carry the film. Initially, no company would touch it.
SOLUTION: Generate buzz, interest, and excitement in The Passion of the Christ (theatrical release, home video release, and merchandising) through the internet, TV, radio, print, viral marketing, and grassroots marketing.
STRATEGY: After seeing an early screening of the film, we began developing a grassroots website to promote the film (many months before the official website release). The initial goal was to create enough interest in the film to help Gibson acquire a U.S. distributor for the film by collected statistics. Once the film had a distributor, the next goal was to place the film into as many theaters as possible, while sparking enough interest to maximize viewership.
Knowing that The Passion of the Christ would be appealing to an international audience, the website was designed in 18 languages (even the dead language of Aramaic used in the film). We staged a complex promotion for the site involving search engines, viral marketing, video/audio/flash presentations, strategic partnerships, affiliate relationships, and social networking.
Geographic and demographic analysis were also generated. These important studies highlighted which areas of the country were most interested in the movie, and helped convince key film distributor Newmarket Films to come on board. This move alone greatly increased screen coverage.
As the release of the film approached, we worked closely with the film's Marketing Director. Through a special agreement, passion-movie.com was granted early exclusive licensing of inside stories, trailers, and music. Additionally, TV commercials, radio commercials, and print material were co-branded with passion-movie.com, and used to promote the film.
RESULTS: The site was a gigantic success, generating 20 million visitors within the first nine months. A newsletter promoting the film on the site obtained over 250,000 subscribers in four languages.
A major film distributor was acquired, and led to a U.S. theater release featuring over 3,000 screens. This contributed to the strong sales figures for the film:
Theatrical Performance Total US Gross: $370,782,930
Passion-movie.com became the second most visited website for news and information on the film, and the second highest source for pre-sale tickets in the U.S. and U.K. markets.
"I want to take a moment to thank you for helping us make The Passion of the Christ a great success. You were part of an incredible team of people who contributed their time, talent, and channels of influence to catapult The Passion into Hollywood history.
As you know, The Passion has broken many records at the box office, and has become the most talked about movie in years. But more importantly, The Passion story has touched all of us, and moved millions to want to follow its message of faith, hope, love, and forgiveness.
Thanks again for partnering with me in such a worthy endeavor. I look forward to working with you again to bring other powerful films of faith and values to our modern world."
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Geographic and demographic analysis
