Title	VOKA SMARTFAKE
Brand	UNITARY ENTERPRISE A1
Product/Service	VOKA CINEMA SMARTFILM INTERNATIONAL MOBILE FILM FESTIVAL
Category	G06. Breakthrough on a Budget
Entrant	TDI GLOBAL Minsk, BELARUS
Idea Creation	TDI GLOBAL Minsk, BELARUS
PR	TDI GLOBAL Minsk, BELARUS
PR 2	А1 Minsk, BELARUS
Production	EVAN LEVI Ratomka, BELARUS
Post Production	EVAN LEVI Ratomka, BELARUS

Name	Company	Position
Artyom Cheley	TDI Group	Creative Director
Veronika Gapeeva	TDI Group	Account Manager
Vanya Grishkevich	TDI Group	Copywriter
Tanya Petrovskaya	TDI Group	Head of PR
Katya Lozovskaya	TDI Group	Agency Producer
Anya Alexandrovich	TDI Group	Copywriter
Vladimir Androsov	TDI Group	Art Director

Why is this work relevant for PR?

Based on the hot topic – that John Wick is from Belarus – we’ve created a pseudo-documentary film that became interesting to film fans around the world. The news about the unusual film was picked up by more than 150 media outlets around the world. The news was actively discussed on social media, including bloggers and opinion leaders. It became the spawned jokes from major bloggers and TV stars. The free campaign coverage exceeded the budget invested in the production of the film by a hundreds of times.

Background

Situation: Voka Smartfilm is an open festival of mobile cinema in Belarus, a country that very few people knew about back in February this year. The purpose of the brief: To draw attention to the festival of an international audience that loves cinema. We needed to attract participants from all over the world to the festival. The A1 team developed a strategic basis – to draw attention to the festival via celebrity – Keanu Reeves, a star of John Wick 3, where his hero said he is from Belarus. Following the strategy, the agency's task was to draw the world's attention to the festival through the use of celebrity and its history.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

The hero of the film "John Wick 3" performed by Keanu Reeves said that he is Belarusian. We used this powerful PR excuse, which completely falls into the interests of the film audience, and created a fan-made mockumentary (comedy documentary) in which elderly villagers remember the hero, share vivid memories, and demonstrate the places where he grew up. Then the film was posted on fan sites from where it began to gain popularity.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

The audience of the project is film fans, young directors and screenwriters, everyone who is interested in cinema and is ready to take part in the festival. Based on the audience, the strategy was to attract attention of not only professional TV media, but more importantly of fan communities and viral community pages. Those people can really make a video go viral and have sufficient authority among movie fans. With the support of the Pikabu community, we posted a thread with a link to the video on Youtube, which immediately went viral and spread through the news and public, as well as gained popularity on YouTube and was reuploaded in other sites mediaplayers. The video was posted by the largest media outlets, blogs and public pages from many countries (Russia, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, South Africa, the USA and many others).

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

We uploaded the video on YouTube before the festival. At the same time, we sent it to fans with high ratings in the communities. The viral effect appeared the day after publication.

List the results (30% of vote)

Over 3 million article views A total of over 650 000 video views More than 10 000 comments More than 10 000 likes We received free media impressions for a hundred times more than the budget. 80% (which is a magic number for Belarus) of articles positively mentioned the festival and gave a link to its website. In the comments, people admired the creativity and resourcefulness of the creators, and also called Keanu Reeves to Belarus. Well-known bloggers who talk about cinema have become more active, so we reached their audience, consisting not only of movie fans, but also young actors and directors. They learned about the festival and wanted to take part in it.