Brand Story to Watch: Toronto Silent Film Festival

So how does a silent film festival in Toronto manage to capture the attention of a younger crowd and a jaded media?

Well, if you’re the Toronto Silent Film Festival, you explore marrying old content with newer forms, like Instagram and Timeline.

Last year, they had the “world’s first Instagram Film experience” and this year, they’ve launched the Instagram Time Machine.

Why we love it:

• silent film is about the form as much as it is the content; so is this campaign
• silent film was cutting edge technology when it came out; this campaign relies on new, innovative platforms too
• rather than hope a new audience will come to them, they’ve gone looking for them where they are, not where they used to be
• it’s fun
• they’ve found a newsworthy hook (Chaplin’s 100th year) and run with it in interesting way

Anything to consider?

Sophomore campaigns are hard. The first is unexpected and fresh.

Come time for the second campaign, everyone wants you to come up with something completely new and different.

That’s not always possible, particularly not on a budget where the sponsors include a local ice cream parlour, even if it is Ed’s Real Scoop, makers of amazing home made ice cream just a few short blocks from me.

Ordinarily, this campaign may not get as much love as last year’s for that reason alone.

But the Chaplin Centenary is a very strong hook, and with a strong media outreach campaign, a multi-platformed social media outreach, and some strategic cross promotion, this campaign could very well for them.

And the legacy of an enduring cinematic genius.

Congratulations to the Toronto Silent Film Festival and also to Cossette, the company behind the campaign.