GENOCIDE IN BURUNDI - #STOPTHISMOVIE

Short List
TitleGENOCIDE IN BURUNDI - #STOPTHISMOVIE
BrandFIDH
Product/ServiceFIDH
Entrant WE ARE SOCIAL Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation WE ARE SOCIAL Paris, FRANCE
Production THE Paris, FRANCE
Credits
Name Company Position
Sandrine Plasseraud We Are Social Founder & CEO
Isabelle Constant We Are Social Managing Director
Thomas Guilhot We Are Social Creative Director
Fabien Gailleul We Are Social Art Director
Aurélie Durand We Are Social Copywriter
Vincent Reynaud-Lacroze We Are Social Group Account Director
Anthony Maio We Are Social Account Manager
Fabien Gaetan We Are Social Strategic Planner
Cécile Ousset We Are Social TV Producer
Dylan Regal We Are Social Motion Designer

The Campaign

Films like Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, based on true stories, have captured the interest of millions. However, outside of cinema, African conflicts are less captivating for the general public. How can we raise awareness about tragedies being written in real life? To get people to react before another catastrophe happens, FIDH anticipated the worst possible scenario with “Genocide in Burundi” a trailer to a fake movie; the first movie whose release you must stop. The video, created in the style of numerous films based on African tragedies was set out as a real movie trailer. The campaign, with a powerful call to action #StopThisMovie, has been created to showcase a powerful message that if the situation in Burundi continues to deteriorate, this fictional trailer could become a real life movie in the not so distant future and became the only movie you wouldn’t want

Creative Execution

The launch of the film, directed by Burundi’s dictator, employs all of the marketing techniques of a traditional blockbuster film: world premieres in Paris and New York, a showing of the trailer on a giant screen in Times Square, as well as in numerous cinemas, a digital and social media campaign that borrowed the language and culture of cinema fans and drove conversation. Set out as a real movie trailer, Genocide in Burundi has a page on cinema platform AlloCiné - IMDB’s European equivalence- where cinema fans could discover the trailer, the awards (“Worst Scenario Film Festival”, “Golden Bloodbath Award”, “Best Remake Rwanda Award”), backstage secrets (“abuse of power”, “carte blanche to torture & kill”, “incitement to hatred”), along with featuring the government’s key people in the casting section and an interview with a survivor. Additionally, FIDH has called out to a number of international public figures and movie stars

The campaign generated international awareness around the alarming burundese situation in social media and most of all grabbed the attention of the international community. The trailer was seen 2 million times, the campaign generated press coverage in 56 countries and most of all drove conversations with over twenty thousand tweets. Under the unwanted media pressure, Burundi's spokesman launched the distasteful hashtag #ThisIsMyGenocide. Supposedly created to mock the FIDHs' warning of a risk of genocide the hashtag was used to portray that nothing was happening in Burundi. His attitude however prompted the people of Burundi to no longer keep their mouths shut and express their outrage over the government’s remarks. 7 days later, FIDH was invited to argue its cause at the United Nations.

The launch of the film, employs all of the marketing techniques of a traditional blockbuster, across multiple media: world premieres in Paris, New York, a showing of the trailer on a screen in Times Square, as well as in numerous cinemas, a digital and social media campaign that borrowed the language and culture of cinema fans and drove conversation. Set out as a real movie trailer, Genocide in Burundi has a page on cinema platform AlloCiné - IMDB’s European equivalent. Additionally, FIDH has called out to a number of movie stars with personalized messages to encourage them to tweet #StopThisMovie.

Films based on true African stories such as Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, have captured the interest of millions. But when it comes raising international public awareness about a real-life alarming situation in Africa, it’s harder to grab the interest of millions. Because everyone can relate to a film trailer, and it's a creative way to get a message out to a large global audience, we decided to launch a shocking campaign: Genocide in Burundi #StopthisMovie. Set out as a real trailer, created in the style of numerous films about African tragedies, the campaign was deployed with all the codes used for launching blockbusters, with the objective to show that if the situation in Burundi continues to deteriorate, this fictional trailer could become an actual real-life movie in the not so distant future - the only movie they wouldn’t want to see.