Guttersnipes

7/28/2019 Guttersnipes

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Campaign Case StudyJessica Head


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Executive Summary

Guttersnipes, an independent film written by Hollywood producer, Joe Aaron inspiresaudiences everywhere with his heartwarming story about a 17 year-old homeless girl, Jo,who finds a 12 year-old autistic girl, Waverly, abandoned on the streets. The next day Jofinds Waverly in the same spot, cold and terrified. Jo feeling upset and moved by the

situation reluctantly decides to take Waverly in. Because of Waverlys quirks, rules androutines, Jo recognizes that although she has tried to make a home for Waverly, theenvironment is too harsh for her. When she discovers Waverly may have a family, the girlsleave the city in hopes that their journey will lead to a real home.

Joe Aarons career in television production includes a stint at Childrens TelevisionWorkshop, an on-air promotion writer/producer for HBO, Cinemax, Comedy Central, E!, andis co-creator of Disneys cartoon character, Doug. He also is the writer/producer/directorof the feature film Crazy Jones, winner of many awards including, Audience Choice BestFeature at Cinequest International Film Festival.

For the production of Guttersnipes, Joe Aaron hand selected interns chosen byHarding University professors to help him design and implement a social media fundraisingcampaign through a variety of social media platforms for the production of this film.

As a team of 8 students we discussed that a crowd-funding technique through asocial media campaign would be the most beneficial way of exposing the film conceptquickly to possible donors on a nationwide level. Kickstarter, although a fairly new socialmedia program, would offer donors access to a variety of benefits including donorinsurance. This assured individuals that funds would be returned if we did not collect theestimated base cost of the film production.

The social media crowd-funding techniques and a Guttersnipes Gala hosted in LittleRock, Arkansas, provided favorable results for the social media campaign team. Through theKickstarter website, Gutternsipes raised $75,218 exceeding our goal. The film is currentlybeing produced in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Mission

Raise $75,000 through an online platform to ensure production of Gutternsipes by 2013.


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Situational Analysis

Social media marketing can have favorable outcomes if implemented correctly bytargeting specific audiences. 73% of American teens and 47% of online adults use socialnetworking websites. Currently, there are 400 million Facebook users, 20 million uniquevisitors to Twitter per month and 6 billion video views on YouTube eachmonth according to

the Pew Research Center. Social media was a no brainer for the objectives of our missionin most cases.

However, after discussions with several public relations and advertising agencies inLittle Rock, Arkansas, it became evident to our team that although the national statistics ofuse in social media platforms are high, Little Rock, Arkansas does not have similarly highstatistical online activity measurements.

Because Kickstarter had already been implemented as the main fundraising platformbefore our intern team had been chosen, we decided to reach out to corporate businesses

headquartered in Little Rock individually. The incentive for most of these businesses wasthat film production would bring attention to the city, enabling many of these businessesto gain outside exposure excluding locals. As public relations professionals, we knew theimportance of primary and secondary research when designing a fundraising campaign. Itwas vital to our team as we moved forward to identify our target audience in order to gaina desired profit through Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is a fairly new platform for creative projects to gain financialsupport. They house a variety of independently funded projects including, film, games, mu-sic, art and technology. Creators are able to set goals and deadlines for interested donorsto fund their creative projects. In the brave new world of independent cinema without any

set rules, a platform like Kickstarter can be ideal for meeting financial funding goals. Ourteam wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to give donors insurance (as one of therules in the Kickstarter program is: If funding goals are not met, all donors will receive theirdonated funds.) which Kickstarter provides. We decided that the only way to take advantageof the current social media platform and ensure that funding goals would be met was tocreate a social media marketing plan on a national level.

We created a Google document explaining a variety of non-profit organizations,corporations, independent bloggers, and celebrity figures in autism audiences in hopes tocause a viral online reaction, raising all funds through the Kickstarter platform.Our team also recognized that the average time for an independent film to be funded andproduced is 10 years. We knew that in order to defeat this statistic, we would have to havea solid reputation with the right communities and strong objectives, ensuring that we wouldreach our goal.


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Key Messages, Objectives & Strategies

Exposure through multiple social media facets was necessary in creatingawareness about the films purpose and possible donations made through Kickstarter.Through the specific communities we had targeted nationally in our Google document, wewere able to develop relationships that shared the goal of spreading autism awareness. I

specifically worked with autism publications and foundations to gain interest through theirevents that they host annually. This included many sponsored 5K and fun run races invarious cities across the United States that would feature booths set up where people coulddonate funds through our Kickstarter website.

Objective #1Identify a celebrity associated with an existing fan base to promote films inspiration.

Strategy:

We had several associated celebrities that we wanted to expose; mainly in the autismawareness world that we felt would gain the interest of a fan base for making this film.Temple Grandin, an internationally respected specialist in designing livestock handlingsystems, is the most noted high-functioning person with autism in the world today. She isa popular columnist in the magazine, Autism, Aspergers Digest and has a powerful voicewith many associated with most highly recognized autism organizations and publications.Having Temple Grandins voice as a supporter for the making of this film, empowered manyin her following to donate funds.

Joe Aaron, the writer of Guttersnipes also has wide shpere of influence as theco-creator of Dis neys Doug, standing along with several other contributors to the makingof the film including, Steve Nicolaides, producer, who has worked on three successful filmsincluding, Stand by Me, Boyz N the Hood, and School of Rock.

We hypothesized that this fan base could support the foundation of our strategyusing a viral social media campaign.

Objective #2Address a popular topic that allows the audience to become the dreamer and

filmmaker of Guttersnipes.

Strategy:Through Kickstarter, we wanted to allow our sponsors to feel ownership of a project

that they helped implement. In order to do this effectively, we offered incentives fordonating to the Kickstarter website.

The following page identifies the different gifts provided in exchange for donations.


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Key Messages, Objectives & Strategies

Objective #1Develop relationships with local businesses who support the making of Gutternsipes in

Little Rock, Arkansas.

Strategy:Create a Guttersnipes Gala that features a variety of Hollywood paraphernalia in a

silent auction. This was hosted by the Little Rock Club in downtown Little Rock. Muchsuccess in developing local relationships and funds was established at the event.


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Secondary ImplementationThrough all of these objectives and strategies, we had managed to raise $42,000

three weeks away from our deadline date of meeting our $75,000 funding goal. Because theKickstarter program allows donors to reciee funds back if original goals had not been met,it was necessary for us to find some avenue in our online campaign that we had not yetused.

We decided to take advantage of a current Facebook website hoax to gain morefunding support. At Harding University, a sorority group, Iota Chi, had left their Facebookpage options open to the general public accidentally. Several groups around campusdecided to take advantage of this page and let anyone be added to the Iota Chi page. Theentire student body was welcomed to wear pink on Thursday to show their support for theirnew sisters in Iota Chi. Soon, this fake sorority became viral and had over 100,000members extending to multiple universities across the world.

Once the membership was at its peak, we introduced the idea of Guttersnipes. Soon,we had donors from all over the country showing their support for the film by making

donations on our Kickstarter page. Through this viral social media epidemic, we were ableto raise $33,218.


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EvaluationI share this case study because I feel that this internship has been most valuable to

me in exploring and better understanding the utilization of social media platforms. Althoughwe achieved some success through our original objectives, more than half of our moneywas received by a last resort attempt to generate all necessary funding for the project.

Social media platforms can offer both creative and unexpected marketingopportunities but it is necessary to know who the audience is to achieve desirable results. Ibelieve that the lack of primary and secondary research is what caused inefficiency infunding.

This project is also a valuable example of having flexibility in a plan to meet aclients needs. As interns, we were expected to raise $75,000 for this film in a 3 monthperiod of time. Creating a social media campaigns on average take months of planning andresearch in order for it to be implemented properly, but experiencing early deadlines is apart of our business in public relations. Flexibility can most often be key to success.

Documents

Guttersnipes