The Campaign

On May 22, 2018, IMAX
Melbourne Museum turned 20. To celebrate, they launched a year-long integrated
brand and publicity campaign that focused on a tip
shared during the 2017 GSCA Marketing Symposium: the importance of engaging
with and acknowledging your core audience, your “one percenters.” Plus, they threw a huge party. Winner of the GSCA 2018 Best Theater Marketing Campaign, Melbourne's #20YearsOfIMAX suite of eye-catching assets is bold, creative and has cut through in all markets.

Strategy

The ultimate goal in
developing this yearlong campaign was to mark 20 years of IMAX Melbourne and to
excite current and new audiences for years to come. In order to do this, Melbourne’s
tactical goal was to secure statewide publicity and strong social media
activity by utilizing 20th anniversary brand assets and leveraging associated
brand partners. The idea was to roll out a completely integrated campaign using
all available owned, earned and bought channels—with a budget of less than
$10,000.

IMAX Melbourne focused on a tip
shared during the 2017 GSCA Marketing Symposium: the importance of engaging
with and acknowledging your core audience, your “one percenters.” Melbourne’s
IMAX Big League Members are their biggest fans, those who know everything about
IMAX and IMAX Melbourne and are the strongest advocates. So these one percenters
were a target audience for this campaign.

Tactics and
Implementation

The #20YearsOfIMAX campaign
featured pop-art-styled eye. Eye for IMAX. An animated eye. The eye is how we
experience and immerse ourselves in the IMAX experience. 20 years ago IMAX
Melbourne was owned and operated by World’s Largest Screens, whose logo was an
eye. The concept is bold, adaptable and timeless. Think Warhol, Lichtenstein.

#20YearsOfIMAX came to life
as a still image and an animation across all of Melbourne’s onsite channels, digital
assets and film campaigns, capturing new and developing audiences out in the
streets, online and by word of mouth and making memories with every single
visitor to IMAX Melbourne.

The public relations campaign
included traditional media relations, including the dispatch of a press release
and direct media outreach, which resulted in three radio interviews and
numerous online stories.

But PR is not just about
traditional media outreach! Melbourne wanted to create industry chatter and did
this by engaging its brand partners within the Victorian cultural sector,
including Arts Centre Melbourne, City of Melbourne, State Library of Victoria,
Melbourne Museum, Museums Victoria, Scienceworks Museum and Immigration Museum.

Melbourne looked to create
conversation online by reaching out to a group of influencers they call their “Friends
of IMAX”—individuals with dedicated and engaged followers on social media—and
gave them branded assets and a hashtag (#20YearsOfIMAX) to share.

Melbourne asked the 1%ers to
mention the theater online for a chance to win IMAX tickets. Melbourne also
invited the 1%ers to a special 20th anniversary screening of
MacGillivray Freeman’s Everest (the
first film ever screened at the theater), debuted the brand new #20YearsOfIMAX
campaign on the giant screen that night, and invited them to a party after the
screening, which the 1%ers tweeted about it! Melbourne wanted its 1%ers to feel
the love they deserve.

Melbourne’s BIG eye-dea was
to launch the “eye” concept at the 20th anniversary party on May 22,
2018. Party guests included media, Friends of IMAX (social media influencers),
IMAX Big League Members (the 1%ers), the who’s-who of Melbourne, marketing and
publicity representatives from our brand partners, museum members, film
industry friends, ex-IMAX staff, senior museum representatives and Melbourne
staff’s own friends and family. They wanted people who would start
conversations with “Hey, did you know that IMAX Melbourne is 20 years old?”
That night there were 800 guests through the doors.


Melbourne used every
available channel to introduce the eye concept to the 800 guests. They looped
short-form eye animations on the digital foyer screens, projected a giant
version of the eye animation onto the exterior façade of the IMAX building, and
debuted an extended version of the eye animation and similarly branded and
completely updated welcome speech onto the IMAX screen.

A giant
version of the eye animation projected onto the exterior façade of the IMAX building

Melbourne also reached out to
Everest Director Greg MacGillivray and
asked him to make a short welcome video. Greg obliged with a fantastic video
acknowledging the 20th anniversary of both the theater and the film,
which was screened in front of Everest
at the anniversary party.

Most Successful Part of the
Campaign

The most successful part of the
campaign was the development and delivery of our #20YearsOfIMAX suite of eye-catching
assets that were used across all owned, earned and bought channels. The
campaign is bold, creative and has cut through in all markets that speak
directly to the targeted audiences.

IMAX Melbourne PR & Brand Manager Kate Piasecka and General Manager Richard Morrison with their GSCA 2018 Achievement Awards for Best Theater Marketing Campaign and Big Idea.