Festival launch, Digital asset package, Awards campaign
Client: Sisyfos, Territory: International, Year: 2020-2021
Ali Boulala has been skateboarding since he was very young, but never thought he would become a professional. However, when a brand agrees to sponsor him at the age of 16, he leaves Sweden for the United States.
Swedish production company Sisyfos hired us in 2020 to work on the marketing of their feature documentary THE SCARS OF ALI BOULALA by Max Eriksson, a film that follows the skateboarding legend from the 90s after the tragic turn his life took and his struggles with addictions.
We started with a marketing strategy aimed at identifying the main strengths of the project and the challenges to keep in mind when thinking about the promotion of the film.
The next step was to establish a social media strategy, that would take into account the Kickstarter campaign that had been already done for the film and the presence of an important figure and influencer, Ali Boulala himself.
The third step was the festival launch campaign at Tribeca, for which we launched the film’s social media channel. We then closed the project with a digital asset package that was made available to the sales agent and to distributors for the release of the film in several territories.
Joanna Solecka
Project Manager
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The strategy
THE SCARS OF ALI BOULALA offers the potential to appeal to two very different type of audiences: on one hand traditional arthouse audiences and festival-goers; on the other hand more mainstream audiences who can be attracted to the coolness of the main character and the 90s look of the film.
In order to satisfy both audiences and potentially reach a larger audience, we decided to keep the look & feel of the campaign very fresh and modern, keeping the punk and raw look of the film without going too much into the Jackass aesthetic.
For the content, we decided to highlight the personal story element of the film and to play on 90s nostalgia, something that hasn’t been very present in films from the recent years.
This gave us the positioning angle of “the big film of the 90s we’ve all been waiting for”! In terms of timing, we went for a concentric circle strategy, starting with existing fans of Ali Boulala – who were very excited about the film – and then to introduce his story to new and larger audience groups.”
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Results
Our main achievement was to find the right look & feel for the campaign. This was one of the most challenging decisions to make and the result looks great.
It still feels very fresh today and stands out in the documentary landscape, without excluding crucial parts of the audience.
We also feel that our strategy made the team aware of possible scenarios, our discussions with them really allowed to anticipate key moments and challenges.
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