prime x D&AD Shift

A Campaign for the Thriller TRUNK

The D&AD Shift class was asked to develop a campaign for an upcoming Thriller named TRUNK. We were briefed in person and had about 1 ½ hours to develop a first idea and collect feedback. Later, we had 2 more rounds for pitching our ideas for feedback with stakeholders from prime.

The Ask: Create watch intent that clearly leads to new sign-ups by a buzzing campaign activation with a focus on Thriller fans and Gen Z+Y.

The Solution: The world's biggest escape-room aired on twitch accompanied by a thrilling Out of Home experience.

Rational for our direction

The Problem: We needed to work with very little information about the single-location thriller - we didn't even know much more than the information publicly available. Attempts to gather info weren't fruitful either. So essentially we needed to cling onto the very little information we had: A young backpacking woman who was waking up in a locked trunk of a moving car.

The Opportunity: The Thriller has two utilizable components to inspire our campaign: The “single location setting” and a “backpacking woman being locked in”. These opened up opportunities in the direction of e.g. an Alternate Reality Game or assault on women. However, we didn't know if it was a kidnapping or if there was a huge twist waiting up. So we decided to work with the facts that we knew to be true.

The Brand: The Brand guidelines of prime, formerly prime video, strengthened our direction for an ARG. However, due to the guidelines not being publicly available I can't go into detail.

Key-Insight

“Every thriller is like a puzzle, every viewer a riddler”

Campaign Message

“Escape the Trunk, Unlock the Truth”

Idea

An Alternate Reality Game, that awaits with a thrilling and fun riddle experience inviting viewers to share their highlights & create user-generated content across social media.

Execution

World's biggest escape-room aired remotely over the course of several days on Twitch with popular streamers and potentially parts of Trunk's crew. The event invites viewers to help the locked in stars to escape by finding cues online and IRL.

To bullet-proof the strategy of the campaign I investigated the underlying assumption of escape rooms being the right choice with a survey that showed escape rooms are in fact very popular among thriller fans and beyond. Basically fans of the thrilling movie genres are also open to finding thrill & riddles elsewhere.

As part of the Out of Home campaign a multisensory showpiece positioned strategicly in shopping malls (timely relevant) waits up with an immersive experience.

Billboards and posters with intriguing questions in the tone of voice of prime are completing the Out of Home part of the campaign.

Adittionally we created a sample collection of memes for prime's instagram channel to round off the campaign package.

The Team

Sandra Bogdanovic

Japhath Agyemang

Helmar Stammann