Client: Fox Searchlight
When you think of Wes Anderson, words like visionary, craftsman and innovator come to mind. With a distinct aesthetic that leaves no detail unaccounted for, one could argue that the process is equally as important as the product.
In developing the Isle of Dogs digital campaign, bespoke was a word that came up a lot. We knew that whatever materials we created had to feel purposeful and tailored to the audience who consumed them. The foundation of the campaign was a three-pronged social media strategy that encompassed Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, along with a game-ified mobile stunt in the weeks leading up to the film’s release. We took a deep dive into Anderson’s fictional world of Megasaki, catering to fans and aligning the film’s relevant themes with happenings in the real world along the way.
I worked alongside 2 creative directors and 1 senior social media manager to lead a scrappy but extremely talented team of designers, developers, copywriters, editors, motion graphics artists and community managers.
With Instagram we aimed to highlight the epic story, locations and characters using visual assets in ways that felt native to the platform. We focused on triptych imagery, carousels and nested content to make the account feel curated. Any sort of direct marketing messages were posted in IG Stories and pinned, maintaining the visual integrity of the account.
Early on, we identified the hidden meaning behind the film’s title and wanted to drive home the message that Isle of Dogs = I Love Dogs. We posted this IG story for Valentine’s Day and fans’ minds were blown.
Our goal with Twitter was to extend the voice of the dogs by tweeting and engaging with fans in-world. We sought to make the dogs’ perspective relevant by interacting with other accounts in irreverent ways and offering commentary on current events. And GIFs. Lots of GIFs.
With every Tweet, it was important for us to showcase the dogs’ point of view. From general musings to commentary on current events (i.e. The Oscars), followers were privy to their humor, pragmatism and distinctive personalities.
In order to engage the community, we prompted them to Tweet at us with dog commands (i.e. sit, fetch, etc.). We replied to fans with custom responses, GIFs and rewarded those who gave us treats, by adding them to a “good humans” list to be referenced for future use. You can view some of the responses here.
Our goal with Facebook was to introduce the film’s human characters and touch on narrative story elements from their point of view. From a content perspective, we focused on marquee pieces of video content with distinct CTAs at the end, engaging audiences and extending the conversation.
This PSA-style video from the Megasaki government introduces viewers to the symptoms of dog flu and invites them to submit info about their pets in the comments. The increased engagement helped us work around Facebook’s algorithm to improve organic views.
This Facebook video further builds the world of Megasaki by depicting a cooking segment gone awry on the city’s morning news program. Here we introduce the “pro-dog” resistance movement that seeks to liberate the dogs from Trash Island and invite users to join the movement.
At the end of the video, users are prompted to Join The Movement and can submit their candidacy for Pro-Dog swag using Facebook’s job application feature.
This mobile-first microsite was a key component of the campaign and rolled out over a 3 week period leading up to release. Every day at a designated time, participants could visit the site to dig through virtual trash and win actual props from the film. With a limited supply of prizes, the timed releases created a sense of urgency and intrigue and promoting the “drops” through social content rewarded the most engaged followers.
Upon arrival, users would immediately be able to swipe their finger across the screen to open the bag of virtual trash. A character interstitial would then play and transition the user to the item they discovered. Most of the time, users would reveal an in-world item from the film that they could share if desired. If they discovered the puppy snap however, they’d be eligible to win real props and other prizes from the film.
The microsite caught on well with fans and created a dedicated, passionate following amongst those vying for prizes.
Copywriting
Wes was very particular about the context around our in-world content - especially when writing things using the dogs’ voice. We kept a robust editorial calendar that was sent directly to Wes’ team 2 weeks in advance of posting.
Japan
Japanese characters are awesome design elements and the film materials featured a lot of them. We worked with a translator to make sure materials featuring Japanese characters were displayed in the correct context. Additionally, there were some cultural appropriation concerns that arose from critics close to the film’s release and as such, we had to make sure that we didn’t overlook any sensitivities to the material.
Traffic Spikes
Since the Daily Scraps microsite was only accessible for a limited time each day, we had to architect the framework to accommodate concentrated spikes of user traffic. Although we stress tested the site rigorously during development, there were many on the fly adjustments that had to be made to the framework once the site was live.
Final Assets
Only having access to the watermarked feature made production of video assets a little trickier as we had to request clean footage for each piece once it was routed through approval. Delivering finishing files for international markets was also necessary, requiring us to implement additional up-front planning and best practices to ensure the files were useable by the teams who were localizing content.
This was an amazing campaign to work on creatively and procedurally. In both digital and social, we were given the freedom to fire on all cylinders, and the team effort really made things gratifying. All in all we amassed 147k + new followers, 68m+ impressions, 3m+ engagements and a whole lot of happy fans!
We were also fortunate enough to be awarded FWA Site of the Day and Awwwards Site of the Day.
Credits
Agency: Watson DG
Executive Creative Director: Fernando Ramirez
Creative Director: Hleb Marholin
Associate Creative Director: Arin Delaney
Content Director: Ryan Shelton
Art Directors: Marvin Schwaibold, Louis Ansa
Designer: Ellen Fabini
3D Artist: Alex Hsu
Developers: Florian Morel, Baptiste Briel, William Chen
Copywriter: Molly Douglas
Video Editors: Rudy Vermorel, Garett Gioia
Social Media Manager: Alex Cipriano
Community Manager: Maitlyn Phan
Producer: Greg Meltzer