Lost Girls & Love Hotels
360 Campaign Case Study
A True Partnership
In the summer of 2020, we were approached by Astrakan Film to act as their full-service marketing agency and bring their stunning film ‘Lost Girls and Love Hotels’ to US audiences with a brief to create a direct-to-consumer campaign that feels as big as a theatrical release.
Unpacking the creative and commercial goals of the film’s release, and pairing them with Director William Olsson’s vision for the film, we created a 360 campaign, building out creative collateral including the key art and teaser trailer, organic and paid social strategy, as well as a full social, publicity, and influencer campaign that leveraged key partnerships; all the while offering timely consultancy to navigate the tricky landscape of Covid-19 and its impact on consumer behaviors within the entertainment industry.
Combining digital strategy, impeccable digital creative, and a talent strategy for Alexandra Daddario’s 17 million followers, we helped Astrakan Film to realize their creative DTC vision and bring this rare and unique film to US fans across the country.
“The team are an absolute pleasure to work with. With a combination of integrity, flexibility and a can-do attitude, they create miracles. From a deep understanding of the film based on our initial conversations, to the idea and execution of how to market it in a way that we were proud of, they delivered, all the way through.”
— William Olsson, Director
Thematic Pillars
By identifying the strong through-lines in the story, we were able to create a strategically phased out campaign that hit on all the major beats.
Escapism
Tranquility
Duality
Rebirth
Strategy
Utilize the star power and social reach of lead Alexandra Daddario
Leverage critical acclaim for this highly stylized indie film
Appeal to book lovers and fans of Catherine Hanrahan’s original novel
Align creative design elements with filmmakers’ vision
Creative
Our creative campaign needed to reflect the visually captivating cinematography presented in the film. The team leaned into the color palettes, tone, and overall perspective of a young woman looking to find herself. After all, anything beautiful doesn’t last…
Teaser Trailer
Inspired by the films patient editing & Alexandra’s sultry VO, we cut a highly stylized teaser inviting you to get lost in the darkest alleys of Tokyo. Working across multiple time zones, we integrated Frame.io into our workflow, allowing the directors to markup the film with tags and comments to give our editors clear direction and swift feedback.
Key Art
Taking talent and team safety into precaution, we veered away from a traditional marketing shoot, and worked closely with the director to create a poster built entirely using stills from the film. This would later become the cover of the reprint published by Harper Collins, as well as drive our media buy.
Artist Poster Series
Liam Wong, Japan 367.7k total followers
Premiered with Nerdist 1M total followers
Midnight Marauder, LA 36k total followers
Premiered on Cinemablend 68.7k total followers
Doaly, UK 36k total followers
Premiered on Fandango 6.65M total followers
Yuko Shimizu, NYC 467.8k total followers
Premiered on IMDB 14.6M total followers
We curated artists from around the globe to create exclusive posters released through talent, influencer, and media pick up. 19M+ Total reach.
Social
The social campaign focused on celebrating the visuals from the film and the Japanese setting, while positioning it as a beautiful and intriguing film for both art-house fans and Alexandra’s built in fanbase. We drove purchase and supported paid media with premium social content & short-form arresting creative while leveraging talent and talent channels to provide good launching points for content, paid social and trailer pushes.
Margaret’s Diary
Critical Acclaim
Today We Take The Train
Out Now
PR
With such a visually led property, a major focus of our PR campaign was to ensure standout media amplification for all creative assets, from traditional content to those less commonly supported by media debuts. Capitalizing on talent allowed us to target a diverse audience base and tap into broad entertainment audiences, while review and partnership outreach was focused on garnering support from more traditional arts and cinephile audiences and highlighting the film's female power behind, and in front of, the camera.
Exclusive Premieres
Publicity Highlights
Publishing Highlights
Talent Opportunities
People Exclusive
CherryPicks
Entertainment Weekly
Media Buy
A hyper-targeted strategic media plan looked to drive deeper into the film’s target audience via key interest groups, to build awareness beyond talent’s fanbase. Daily optimized social buys lead to CPMs 30% lower and CPCs 15% lower than platform averages – far surpassing planning benchmarks. The campaign also generated standout engagement at 25% - well beyond industry standards. These successes were further bolstered with meaningful partnerships with NPR and Color Palette Cinema to target cinephiles and Book Riot for fans of the original source material.
25%
Engagement Rate
Retailer Platform Creative
We also created & delivered assets to retailers to feature the film on their platforms.
Creative developed for iTunes & AppleTV+