Case Study: Forest City Film Festival Re-Branding

For the second annual Forest City Film Festival, I was brought in to contribute to the marketing strategy of the festival for the upcoming year and the years to come. Forest City is the only film festival in one of Canada’s largest cities, London, and the biggest festival celebrating talent from Southwestern Ontario. It includes a diverse range of film categories, industry networking events, parties, and educational workshops for attendees.

In many ways, London parallels Toronto; but in many ways it is disassociated from its metropolis sister. The goal of the festival from the start was to change perceptions about Southwestern Ontario and emphasize that it too has an established and thriving film industry. Forest City stresses that Canadian film exists outside of the confines of Toronto and its stories are more diverse. In this, FCFF has helped grow the industry in the city and since its beginning has seen a rise in both international and domestic filmmakers basing themselves in the city of London. With a goal in place, I was responsible in leading the marketing and PR so these goals could be realized.

Problem

As a young festival, the brand’s image had not developed fully. Moreover, a previous lack of focus on digital marketing risked stagnating festival growth in a digitally run marketing space. We did not want to limit the festival to local attendees, but wanted to expand audience reach to Toronto and beyond in order to gain authority, and a strong foothold in the Canadian film festival circuit. The bottomline? The festival had to re-invigorate its strategy and lacklustre branding. Further, ticket sales had to increase in order to help the festival grow the following year and be able to facilitate a larger audience.

Strategy

A major weak point was the brand’s lack of recognizability outside the local film scene. In order to grow its audience, the festival needed to implement a strategy that would strengthen the festival’s connection with people and the city. Increasing engagement on digital became a clear focus for me and my team early on. Working directly with the festival director, I worked with the team to to execute the following:

• creating a social media calendar and engaging assets to schedule to promote consistent posting multiple times a day. Streams included Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

• re-iterating strategy to maximize algorithm preference on socials

• began producing a series of bite-sized and trend-worthy

  • focused on London’s influence on and links to international blockbuster films

• developed integrated and interactive experiences, re-purposing material for different mediums

  • Live Q+A periods with filmmakers whose films would be coming to FCFF

  • pre-filmed interviews with guests

  • writing articles to tease what is to come

  • Live streaming all Q+A’s during festival weekend to drive interest for the next year

  • FCFF branded experience at Comic Con booth increasing chatters online about FCFF, influencer sharing their photos from our booth

  • social media contests

  • working with production houses like Corus Entertainment to strategize ways to promote their films premiering at the festival

    • book signings with the actors from the Kids Films Category, including Callan Potter + Jonny Gray of Bruno & Boots.

• targeted ads in local print publications

  • copywriting ads in the local hispanic paper to promote latin films showing at the festival

• Interviewed by all of Corus Entertainment’s subsidiary radio stations across Southwestern Ontario to talk about Forest City Film Festival and impress upon its cultural importance

Result

Ticket sales increased drastically and social engagement increased by about 400% across all platforms. It also became the first year that received attention from news outlets and arts publications. CTV News, CBC News, local radio stations, The Gazette, London Free Press, and London Fuse were just a handful of the media we saw reporting the festival for the first time. You can also read my interview with London Fuse here.

We were able to secure more sponsorships for the following year due to the success from this 2017 run. During post-festival debriefing, I suggested the festival have more events throughout the year. This can assist in creating festival loyalty, ongoing engagement, and ongoing media coverage while getting people to talk throughout the year. One idea I posited was to create a film club to encourage a sense of community. Screening popular films with connections to London such as Mean Girls alongside previous festival winners would be a fantastic way to increase the festival’s exposure while also raising the London arts community. Although I did not work with FCFF the following year, this suggestion was put into action by the festival director for all festivals since. I also wrote a post-festival report with my summary of what the festival did well and my suggestions for area of improvements; this report was distributed to the Board of Directors at the festival and its specifications on making a better effort to making representation a part of film selection was formally mandated in the festival’s overall strategy. I was consequentially asked to join Western University’s Film Research Group that would inform festival’s in London and abroad.