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2011 Shorts Film Festival
The situation. Shorts Film Festival stands alone as Australia’s only national short film festival and competition entirely dedicated to ensuring that the specialist craft of storytelling through film is fostered and celebrated. Shorts presents a showcase of Australian talent across a week of lounge-style film screenings.
Shorts Film Festival wanted 2011 to be the year that cemented their status as one of Adelaide’s best festivals offering a fantastic and inspiring experience for both filmmakers and filmwatchers. 2011 was also the first year that the festival moved into Norwood Concert Hall in the Eastern suburbs and the first year of their Black Shorts Award for indigenous filmmakers.
The festival board wanted to raise awareness of these developments and create a buzz of excitement amongst the Australian film community, potential audience members from the SA public, key opinion leaders and government, the SA tourism industry, potential sponsors and the media. The driving force was to boost ticket sales and attract new sponsors. They required the support of a professional PR firm to develop and deliver a far reaching and PR strategy and communications campaign to run in the lead up to and during the festival taking place in March - April 2011.
Objectives. The key objectives of the campaign were to:
- Promote Shorts as a fun event which acts as platform for showcasing the talents of Australian and international filmmakers
- Establish Shorts in its new home at the Norwood Town Hall in Adelaide’s Eastern suburbs
- Promote Shorts as Adelaide’s only national dedicated short film festival
- Promote Shorts as social event that takes films out of the traditional hushed cinematic environment
- Engage with filmmakers and media interstate to promote Shorts as a national festival
- Promote the talents of short filmmakers and their films
- Successfully launch and promote the first Black Shorts Award
- Promote sponsors and supporters of the event and attract new sponsors and supporters
- Drive enquiry and ticket sales via ticket agent and Shorts website
Elements. Hughes PR devised a communications calendar for the 2011 Festival and worked in partnership with GlamAdelaide and street marketing company Passing Out to deliver all elements successfully.
- Implementation of an event driven publicity program
- Securing national, SA and local media coverage in mainstream and specialist film media outlets
- Marketing festival through the council and council employees
- Promoting event through Business Networking groups
- Norwood Parade Banners
- Online advertising
- Event Posters in cafes, shops and other local meeting places
- Building excitement online via social media e.g. Facebook and Twitter
As a direct result of Hughes PR’s targeted media liaison and media release distribution the Shorts Film Festival 2011 secured 30 mentions and headlines in print media from March – April 2011. The story was covered by a broad range of local, SA and national media including the Qantas inflight magazine The Australian Way, the national women’s magazine Marie Claire, South Australian lifestyle magazine SA Life, 10 local newspapers and a front page article by the Adelaide Advertiser. The average size of the article was 550.52 sq.cms and the total audience reach was 2,052,539.
Shorts Film Festival 2011 was also covered by TEN news on Saturday 9 April reaching an audience of 37,000 and by ABC 891 Adelaide radio station. It received more than 10 mentions online including national news website News.com.au which reaches an audience of 29,000, Australia’s leading film magazine Filmink , online creative community Arts Hub and AdelaideNow.
