Case study Overview
Background
Blasting onto UK screens in May 2009, director J. J. Abrams brought us a new vision of Star Trek, the greatest space adventure of all time. As the eleventh film in the series and starring a new, emerging cast, high expectations surrounded its release.
Objectives
In order to connect with both existing fans and more importantly a wider audience, Paramount Pictures wanted to:
- Use eBay's huge reach to broaden awareness of the movie
- Harness our behavioural targeting capabilities to isolate the right audiences and deliver relevancy and performance
- Create an engaging and branded experience that showcased the trailer and excited the audience to win an 'out of this world' holiday to the US
Solution
We developed an integrated strategic partnership to deliver maximum awareness of the movie amongst loyal fans as well as a new and wider audience.
The partnership comprised of three elements:
Display Advertising
Display advertising ran across specific areas of the site in order to reach multiple audiences in certain contexts.
Targeting movie lovers and the Star Trek faithful
A banner campaign was run in the DVD, film and TV category. Over 800 DVDs and Blu-Rays are bought every hour on eBay in the UK, so explicitly targeting searches and browsers ensured we could pinpoint known movie lovers.
In order to capitalise on the 20,000 items of Star Trek merchandise on ebay.co.uk, banners were targeted to keywords including the cast and characters, and any relevant Star Trek terms.
Targeting users in key categories and leveraging the purchasing behaviour on the site allowed Paramount to reach those who met specific audience profiles for the movie.
A wider audience
To reach a wide group of users, display advertising was run right across the site in order to alert to the movie's release and encourage them to visit the microsite to enter the competition.
With a high volume of repeat users on eBay, this approach allowed the creative to reach all categories and ensured it was seen by 16 million unique visitors per month.
Microsite
A microsite, created by PMA marketing was hosted on eBay and included the imagery, trailers and soundtrack to the new film release. It helped to heighten anticipation of the new movie and provided the opportunity for visitors to enter a competition.
Competition
Then came the ultimate in engagement: a competition to win an 'out of this world' holiday to the US. The prize included sending the winner and a friend to embark on their own space adventure. Attending a 3-day Academy at the US Space and Rocket Centre, they would be put through their paces in a VIP astronaut training experience.
Results
The Star Trek film was an incredible success in the UK, taking £6 million on launch weekend and jumping straight to number one in the box office charts. The movie remained in the top 5 for five weeks during which time it grossed over £19 million.
eBay Advertising played in important role in raising awareness online by promoting the movie to an audience of 16 million unique visitors. Results demonstrated that targeting and engaging consumers at the right time in the right place can deliver huge brand awareness and interest.
- 20,000 visits to the microsite
- Over 2,500 competition entries within the first two weeks
- 40% conversion of microsite visitors to entries during the first 7 days
- 50% opt-in rates for futures Paramount Picture releases
- CTRs of advertising formats reached 400% higher for targeted users and 200% higher for broad reach than site average ROS campaigns