ITV commissions over 50 hours of original British premium Drama every year.
ITV’s six-part contemporary British Drama series Girlfriends, from the pen of top writer Kay Mellor, features a star-studded cast of Miranda Richardson, Zoë Wanamaker and Phyllis Logan. Girlfriends tells the story of the lives of three friends of a certain age, all living busy lives and facing many relatable challenges, proving that true friendship remains the same no matter what.
Global film distributor Entertainment One (eOne) has a slate of over 20 UK cinema releases scheduled for 2018 with one of the highlights to date being the hit British comedy Finding Your Feet. The film stars an incredible ensemble cast of national treasures including Imelda Staunton, Celia Imrie, Timothy Spall and Joanna Lumley. The film follows this colourful group of defiant and energetic thirdagers as they travel from leafy London to the romantic sites of Rome to discover that retirement is in fact only the beginning, and that friends and family, above all else, are the key to a life well lived.
Finding Your Feet’s high profile broadcast sponsorship of the-six part ITV Drama Girlfriends was a strategic and creative match made in heaven proving that advertising with ITV drives broad awareness and gets the nation to take action.
Challenge
The challenge for Finding Your Feet was to cut through the crowded cinema marketplace by partnering with a show that shared the same values and key target audience of upmarket Women.
Insight
People will seek out and engage with premium content which resonates with them and their own lives. Both Finding Your Feetand Girlfriends both offered the Great British Public the chance to connect with aspirational stories that they can relate to.
Idea
The idea was to capitalise on the strategic and thematic links between the film and programme, and by sponsoring Girlfriends, eOne were able to reach their key target audience of upmarket Women with ad placements as close to ITV’s content as is possible. To take advantage of the partnership with the ITV Drama, eOne took the bold decision to promote Finding Your Feet a full 8 weeks before its cinema release with the aim of building early awareness and giving older audiences the opportunity to plan their cinema visits well in advance.
Statistics
3m Upmarket Women watched every episode of Girlfriends
25%
Of all Women saw the sponsorship on broadcast
6m Is the estimated amount grossed for the Finding Your Feet Film release
Working closely with the ITV team across the year, we identified the perfect creative and audience fit between Finding Your Feet and Girlfriends very early on - from the cast to the script, the quality and thematic similarities of the ITV drama and our movie were clear to see, so we set about finding a meaningful way to bring the audiences for the show and the film together. There is no doubt that the partnership with ITV’s Girlfriends played a major role in driving mass awareness of the film’s release and in turn lead directly to incremental box office. Coverage and ratings aside, there is of course also immeasurable added value inherent in partnering with a trusted brand like ITV and in being associated with premium content like Girlfriends. At eOne, we are always on the look-out for this sort of innovative and high profile partnership solution - it is immensely rewarding when you find such a perfect brand fit and then have the opportunity to work together with someone like ITV to deliver a campaign that complements both products so perfectly, both creatively and commercially.Chris Besseling, Head of Film Marketing, eOne UK
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