We showed the world.
The world watched.
People don't watch feature films on YouTube, do they? It’s for short, funny stuff, right? An 89-minute environmental film? By a French guy? What a turn off.
Brief
Yann Arthus Bertrand directed a film called Home. It was a visual survey of the earth and was part of a major global environmental project spearheaded by Luc Besson's production company. The objective was to get as many people as possible to watch Home on June 5th 2009. In the cinema. On DVD and TV. And via the internet. That last one was our challenge.
Our insight
To overcome negative audience perceptions around viewing feature-length movies on YouTube, we'd need to make sure the viewing experience matched that of DVD and TV in terms of quality, interactivity and navigation. We'd also need a way of promoting the movie, pre-launch.
Solution
Using a dedicated gadget we turned an ordinary YouTube channel into a movie microsite containing four separate language versions of the film. Everything had an epic, cinematic feel. The navigation had the functionality of a DVD. And the site played on pre-launch expectations by showing a countdown. It even had an option where you could synchronise your own calendar with it. To drive audience, we devised a series of two stage Google gadget ads. Pre launch they contained a YouTube video with the film's trailer. Post launch they switched to the full feature itself, effectively turning any serving website into a screening platform.
Results
Those who said it wouldn't do well were right. It did magnificently. Over 4 million hits on the opening weekend alone. Altogether there were 10 million YouTube channel hits across the four languages. And we broke the YouTube bandwidth record by an amazing 30%. We also won 'Best use of innovation in rich media and video' at the eConsultancy awards. Most importantly, a film with a vital environmental message got the widest possible showing.
