As part of our work as the press office for Sky Cinema, we were tasked with showcasing the breadth of amazing film content available through the platform. And doing this in a way that would get coverage outside of the TV listings pages.
There is no shortage of films for people to watch or platforms for them to watch them on, we needed to cut through the noise in a way that would allow us to talk about the breadth of content in an interesting way.
We decided to look at the role of women in film, looking to identify who are the heroines and female characters that inspire women today and chart the evolution of how women have been depicted on screen to give us a different kind of news story.
We aligned the activity to International Women’s Day in order to create a celebratory story about inspiring women in film at a time when we knew the attitudes around film characters would be of interest to media. In addition, we partnered with film critic and broadcaster Anna Smith to create a specially curated collection on Sky Cinema called ‘Women in Film’ celebrating women in front of and behind the camera in honour of IWD, turning our news story into a holistic campaign with a tangible business action.
We packaged up the research into a news story that we launched the day before International Women’s Day, that led on the fact that British women found Bridget Jones the most inspiring female heroine, allowing us to create a narrative around what makes an inspiring female lead.
The data was packaged up as a listicle news story but also feature pitches around the evolution of female leads, and what makes an inspiring lead character. In addition, we used Anna for interviews to give the story further credibility and to drive broadcast coverage encouraging debate and discussion around what makes a ‘fearless female’ on screen.
Blanket national coverage and consumer lifestyle coverage including Mail Online, Marie Claire, Bustle, The Sun and Cosmopolitan
15 broadcast hits with our story sparking an 8 minute (yep!) debate on Good Morning Britain
Clear call to action in all coverage about going to Sky Cinema to watch content featuring inspiring female leads, highlighting the breadth of content available on the platform