The Campaign

New Moon was set to launch at the height of the Twilight frenzy and needed to achieve better results than the first instalment – we had to appeal to a mass audience to achieve this! The communications needed to appeal to a broad audience without alienating the Twihards. The concern was that they might rebel against the mainstream media frenzy. Hoyts needed a concept which would harness and channel positive public conversation, away from whether they loved or hated it or comparisons to the prequel. We wanted to create something new for the Twihards to talk about; the insight was if we could engage these fans in our campaign, they'd become our strongest advocate. Our solution was to focus on the love triangle between characters Bella, Edward and Jacob. This concept encouraged debate and opinion about New Moon without critiquing the film. Were you Team Edward or Team Jacob?

Success of the Campaign

The competition results were unprecedented: 837,000 entries! Importantly the Team Edward Team / Jacob concept achieved our goal of generating huge conversation about the film – so huge it even influenced the marketing and merchandising. US celebrities got on board with the "Team" campaign concept - Kim Kardashian (Team Jacob), Will Farrell (Team Edward) & Emma Roberts (Team Jacob) showed their allegiance by purchasing merchandise. New Moon surpassed business objectives (beating Twilight) but also smashed the record set by Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince ($14,331,000), totalling $16,010,000 on its first weekend. "What a phenomenal result, this is way beyond our expectations and confirms that the Twilight franchise has well and truly arrived", Robert Slaviero, CEO Hoyts Anthony Thiessen DOM at Hoyts added, “Australia out performed the US on box office takings pro-rata so ‘Team Edward Team Jacob’ definitely assisted with us achieving this spectacular box office result!"

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

The concept was executed via a promotion designed to engage Twihards, the mass market & the critics. The audience were asked to vote for their team and every vote was tallied by a virtual ticker online. As the winning Team glowed brighter, it encouraged users to keep coming back to vote. Twihards were rewarded for their commitment through booster entry mechanics. Team Edward & Team Jacob was brought to life through multiple promotional pieces in magazine and online. The exposure on TV was unprecedented! The Today Show host, Karl Stefanovic revealed himself as a Twihard and sparked conversations between his on-air colleagues as to their team. The film's launch day was covered on Nine Network News, and in a media first our on-air News promo was co-branded. The 11am News was live from the international red carpet premiere, and both the afternoon & evening News provided extensive coverage.