Cinema Beyond the Mainstream

Bergen International Film Festival (BIFF), Tromsø International Film Festival (TIFF), Film fra Sør, Oslo:Pix and Kosmorama teamed up for a joint national campaign aiming to attract younger audiences to film festivals across the country.

The campaign had several key requirements. It had to use each festival’s existing social media channels, be adapted to each festival’s brand and be easy to adapt for festivals of different sizes and niches. It also had to work before and during the festivals throughout the year. Flexibility was important so that each festival could implement the campaign in whole or in part.

To secure insight and involvement from the target group, we ran focus groups. These helped us identify the main challenges. For someone who has never been to a film festival, it can be unclear what to expect. Extensive film programmes can be intimidating to navigate and interpret. And since Gen Z is an emotionally complex audience, the campaign had to appeal to their current mood when making choices.

In working through the brief, we used both primary and secondary sources, including questionnaires, workshops, focus groups, social media trend analysis and desk research, before defining the final concept: “Film Festival Feels” (FFF).

The campaign platform presents relatable feelings, moods and emotions you can expect to experience through festival films. It focuses on connecting how you feel, or want to feel, with curated film lists that match your mood.

The campaign was built around awareness ads on social media that drove traffic to dedicated campaign microsites for each festival (e.g. tiff.feels.no, biff.feels.no, kosmorama.feels.no). On the microsite, visitors found curated film lists based on different moods. The youthful, meme-inspired copy connects with the audience and breaks with the usual genre categories of the film world.

Each film list had a selection of films chosen by the festival, making it easier to find a film to see based on your mood or feelings. Retargeting ads on social media were then used to turn microsite visitors into ticket buyers ahead of and during each festival.

The national campaign was wrapped up with an online campaign guide that made all the necessary assets and implementation tips available to any festival.

The aim of the campaign was to reach a new audience that would otherwise not have film festivals on their radar. By presenting the festival experience and the film programme in a new way, the festival was framed as a social activity competing with everything else on offer for Gen Z.

The campaign was planned to run until the end of 2023.