The Challenge

Warner Bros wanted to create a campaign to celebrate their 90th anniversary highlighting great work from their catalogue. The challenge for Warner Bros was to create excitement and introduce a whole new generation to many of the titles. This required a media partner to bring in film buffs and engage the retailers.

The Idea

To celebrate their 90th anniversary, Warner Bros reissued 40 films from their back catalogue, including classics such as Casablanca, Inception, The Bodyguard and The Shining.

Everyone has a favourite film from the past that they can recall lines from, enthuse about and urge you to watch. It was this passion that Warner Bros wanted to tap into and stir up excitement about the re-release of some of its most-loved movies.

Bauer Media’s entertainment-based brand platforms heat and Empire provided the perfect showcase to create the right dialogue.

Warner Bros asked renowned heat film critic Charles Gant and other members of the editorial team to pick their favourites from the 40 re-releases, and to share their memories of the movie in a double page spread – headlined as heat’s ‘EPIC’ film list.

Running over four weeks, the EPIC list pushed traffic to Warner Bros’ digital retail partner, Blinkbox. Additionally, on celeb website heatworld, a Tweet-A-Thon was positioned as a party, encouraging readers to get involved to win a prize, which helped create additional dialogue around the anniversary films.

A double-page spread in Empire presented the 40 re-releases as a list, which enabled readers to compare their viewing record, rediscover classic films and unearth new ones.

Alongside this, a six-page feature on 90 years of Warner Bros in nine iconic objects’ pored over exclusive artefacts such as James Dean’s costumes and the Harry Potter Quidditch set.

In parallel, Empire Online focused on reviews of the 40 re-released films and a click-through to buy the titles. Empire’s Facebook invited readers to vote for their favourites and win prizes.

The Results

• Film fans responded very positively to the stirring of nostalgia, trivia, repartee and all-round movie excellence
• Sixteen editorial tweets by heat resulted in a 14% response among readers tweeting their own favourites, classic lines and fond observations
• A competition on the Empire Facebook app realised almost 12k entries
• Bauer Media platforms drove more than their fair share of sales of DVD re-releases, Blu-Ray boxsets, digital downloads, reissued tribute posters and other memorabilia