Launch of the world’s first crowd-funding and digital distribution platform for indie film
Challenge
Seed&Spark, the world’s first crowd-funding and digital distribution platform just for independent film, tapped Expedition PR to introduce the company and its offerings. This includes the Seed&Spark platform, which houses independent film crowd-funding campaigns (Seed&Spark Studio) and a slate of independent movies available for streaming (Seed&Spark Cinema).
The agency was tasked with securing media coverage (traditional, online, and bloggers) that would drive traffic and participation in the Seed&Spark platform and film community as well as support executives in finalizing seed funding.
Strategy
To gain traction and interest before the Website was live, Seed&Spark and Expedition PR decided to execute a rolling launch program. Targeting key audiences in film and business media, the program started six weeks prior to the official launch and created an ongoing drumbeat with targeted pitching, news announcements, contributed article placement.
Key angles included new crowdfunding models and fair trade filmmaking. The pitches highlighted Seed&Spark team and the participating Founding Filmmakers. Each pitch and announcement was supported with social media messages to increase the reach and apply Seed&Spark’s emphasis on building a community with social media.
The program targeted media outlets in consumer technology, film, business, entrepreneurship/startup and venture capital media. The campaign also was designed to reach the end-audiences such as filmmakers (Seed&Spark Studio and Cinema participants) along with film enthusiasts (site users), and then the financial community (investors).
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Outcome
- Key Coverage: Features, extended coverage, and contributed articles appeared in Forbes.com, indieWIRE, VentureBeat, Xconomy, TechCocktail, Tribeca Film Blog, PBS POV Blog, Hope for Film, indieNYC, Crowdfunding Insider, CrowdSourcing Blog Germany, among others.
- Closed Seed Fund Round: The Forbes.com article “Changing the Face of Filmmaking” set the tone of the launch, and helped company executives finalize the seed funding round.
- Filmmaker Support: The Social Media Marketing Tool Kit for Crowdfunding Filmmakers was made available to support the Founding Filmmakers in their Marketing efforts.
- Website Impact/User sign-ups/Production Money Raised: The Seed&Spark website traffic was in the high hundreds per month. After launch, the company saw 7,503 unique visitors to the site in December alone. By January 2013, Seed&Spark had 1,500 users. Within its first 60 days, seven films raised $146,429.90 in cash, goods and services with contributions coming from all 50 United States, and 8 countries. More than half of Seed&Spark’s crowd-funding campaigns went into production.
