1. Our marketing strategy consisted of getting as many people aware of the festival, as well as our particular film as possible. Initial ideas were to spread information around the Chinese culture areas in Orlando, restaurants of local color, and find some way of online marketing technique; which we decided to be our social media outlets. We eventually expanded on these ideas at the suggestion of Ken Eng, our assigned director, who had done much of the legwork with his Chinese community, but wanted us to expand our horizons onto as many cultures as possible. Ken also informed us that he was headed to several events while he was in town to promote the film, invited us to join in, as well as pictures and a personal interview with the director to generate hype.
The evolution of Chinese restaurants idea had us going to all sorts of restaurants of varying culture, hotels in the area surrounding the Florida film festival, as well as locations on UCF campus to distribute flyers and give elevator style pitches to passer-bys. We were able to work with a local Dunkin Donuts to pass out more flyers, as well as obtain coupons, which we passed out with even more flyers to get as much of a good buzz as we could. While representatives of our group were not at every one of Ken’s events over the festival, he did send us pictures and updates on his progress for us to post both on our personal media sites, as well as our Blog we kept for class, documenting everything we could both for Ken and for any of his fans. We very much embraced the idea of gorilla marketing techniques, relying heavily on our own free and transportation to spread the word of mouths ourselves. When we could not personally engage possible fans, we left footprints for them to follow, or coupons to earn by listening to our pitch if even for a second. Lastly, we have agreed to pass on our blog to Ken, giving him both a digital journal and marketing tool at his disposal to continue to reach every possible person he can to share his passion with.
The blog became the best strategy that our filmmaker ended up loving so much that he is asking that we continue maintaining our blog for him so that he can utilize the blog in his marketing campaign.We have arranged to update our blog with everything from interviews, schedules of the various other film festival the film and any other social event that will help Ken in marketing My Life in China for the remainder of the year. The experience and time that we’ve had with Ken was extremely rewarding, not only professionally but on a personal level as well as he really is interested in seeing what we as future filmmakers have up our sleeves.
2. What Worked and What Didn't:
Prior to conceptualizing our marketing strategy, Ken was already hard at work reaching out and connecting to the Asian community in Orlando, as well as local Asian organizations. So for our team, our goal was to reach beyond just the Asian community and try to attract a more diverse community to attend the screenings. One of our ideas in our initial discussions was to hold a meet and greet with the director, to talk about the film and discuss issues related to its subject. To our surprise, Ken had already arranged a meet and greet, which he held on Tuesday, April 14th at the YES center here in Orlando. After obtaining quality flyers from Ken, our team decided to pass them out to local businesses, which included hotels, Dunkin Donuts, Pet Supermarket and a variety of Asian restaurants.
On top of this we passed out flyers at the festival to encourage people to attend the screenings. Overall I would say while Ken had already done much of the legwork, our strategies to market the film were quite successful. Both screenings were full, and we were delighted to see the ethnically diverse crowd that came to see the film. It would be unfair to Ken's film to say it appealed primarily to an Asian audience, as the film tacked themes and issues all families of all ethnic backgrounds go through, so it deserved a wider audience demographic. I think it is safe to say our strategy and the execution were a success.
3.
Working with Kenneth Eng the director, or Kenny as he likes to be called, was a treat in and of itself. He arrived the day of our first screening and after checking in at filmmaker registration was so excited to see his street crew of marketing members (us), after traveling from California the previous day with his producer. We had a meeting about what it took to make the film, and then he asked us our own personal goals in the filmmaking industry. Very rarely is anyone so genuinely down to earth like he was. He was so humble to be at the Florida Film Festival and did not have a shred or an ounce of superego in him.
We were lucky to have been a part of his crew, as he is working very hard to get his film “My Life in China” noticed in the film festival community. He had already contacted several groups here in Orlando and across Florida, including Asia Trend, a well-known and respected Asian magazine here in Florida. We were there to support his marketing strategy of contacting as many people as possible in the Asian community throughout Orlando, but what he realized and what we realized is that there is a much broader audience that wanted to see his film. We were able to distribute the postcards, fliers, and Dunkin Donuts coupons to friends, professional contacts, hotels, resorts, restaurants, and stores to gain an audience of all races, and it worked. Both screenings were packed to the brim because of the legwork Kenny and his producer had already accomplished before coming to Orlando. This was their second festival after winning best Documentary Feature Film at the San Diego Film Festival. They are now on their way to a third in Milan, and promised to keep in touch and continue collaborating on our blog even when this class is over.
4.
The Florida Film Festival provided us with a great experience and opportunity to work with a wonderfully talented and humble filmmaker, Ken Eng. After meeting with our director for a couple hours we were determined to help this guy's film get an audience. He was so passionate about his film that the passion leaked over onto us. After giving us fliers and after we printed out hundreds more fliers, we gave them out to a Dunkin' Donuts to distribute in every customers bag (along with coupons). We were hoping that this would reach an older crowd that would more likely have time to come and view the screenings that were during work day hours. We also distributed hundreds of fliers to hotels and Chinese restaurants around the Maitland and Orlando area, as well as passed out fliers at the Florida Film Festival. We also were able to hand out fliers at Megacon, hoping to reach an anime crowd that is predominately Asian. We also spread the word through social media. I personally have a twitter account for my film production company that has over 2,500 followers that I posted on several times, promoting the film and the festival. We also went to many of Mr. Eng's public meet and greets, where we took many pictures and videos (as well as interviewing Mr. Eng ourselves) to post on the blog, hoping to promote the film through that as well. After two successful screenings and a very happy director, I would say we accomplished our task and had a great time doing it.
This was a great experience that we all are thankful for. It was great to work so closely with our director and the festival. We learned how the festival works and we also learned what it takes to make a film and have it go through the film process. We are very grateful this class was able to provide us with this experience and it was very rewarding to help out the amazing man the Ken Eng was to us. I speak for everyone when I say that if we were given the opportunity to do this again, we would.
The Florida Film Festival provided us with a great experience and opportunity to work with a wonderfully talented and humble filmmaker, Ken Eng. After meeting with our director for a couple hours we were determined to help this guy's film get an audience. He was so passionate about his film that the passion leaked over onto us. After giving us fliers and after we printed out hundreds more fliers, we gave them out to a Dunkin' Donuts to distribute in every customers bag (along with coupons). We were hoping that this would reach an older crowd that would more likely have time to come and view the screenings that were during work day hours. We also distributed hundreds of fliers to hotels and Chinese restaurants around the Maitland and Orlando area, as well as passed out fliers at the Florida Film Festival. We also were able to hand out fliers at Megacon, hoping to reach an anime crowd that is predominately Asian. We also spread the word through social media. I personally have a twitter account for my film production company that has over 2,500 followers that I posted on several times, promoting the film and the festival. We also went to many of Mr. Eng's public meet and greets, where we took many pictures and videos (as well as interviewing Mr. Eng ourselves) to post on the blog, hoping to promote the film through that as well. After two successful screenings and a very happy director, I would say we accomplished our task and had a great time doing it.
This was a great experience that we all are thankful for. It was great to work so closely with our director and the festival. We learned how the festival works and we also learned what it takes to make a film and have it go through the film process. We are very grateful this class was able to provide us with this experience and it was very rewarding to help out the amazing man the Ken Eng was to us. I speak for everyone when I say that if we were given the opportunity to do this again, we would.
