2002 BEST STRATEGIC LAUNCH CAMPAIGN WINNER
WINNING ENTRY - The Fast & The Furious
COMPANY - Mediaedge:cia & Maverick Communications
CLIENT - United International Pictures
SPONSORED BY
OBJECTIVE
The Fast & The FuriouS had no big names, an average US launch and no positive pre-awareness in Australia. Communicating the petrolhead theme to a fickle, disloyal youth audience became the challenge. The target group was a psychographic profile: young men into hotted up cars and girls. They needed to be spoken to in their own language, on their own turf, and early enough to give the film legitimate street-cred before mainstream advertising began.
CAMPAIGN
The insight was to take the campaign to the streets. The grassroots guerilla campaign involved identifying suburban car meccas and using footpath stencils, magnets placed over the keyholes on parked cars' doors, stickers on petrol bowsers and flag girls standing at traffic lights. An SMS competition was developed to win custom "FURIOUS" number plates. Following this campaign, a national transit and television campaign began.
RESULTS
Awareness of the film jumped 76% in a single week among the target group. It took $10m at the Australian box office -- $3.3m in its opening weekend, making it the number one film in the country and exceeding the comparative opening in all other countries. The media strategy has now been distributed by Universal Pictures International as an example for other UIP offices to adopt.
