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Relativity launches in-app campaign to spark movie engagement

Movie studio Relativity has launched a native mobile advertising program for its new film "The Family" within the Trailerpop mobile application.

The Family is a new action comedy starring Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer that opens on Sept. 13. Trailerpop users will get an exclusive look inside the film and can also compete in a special trivia contest to win prizes.

?We feel that movie marketing can be more fun and social than it currently is,? said Jon Vlassopulos, CEO of Trailerpop, San Francisco. ?We have found that by making the trailers interactive we can significantly improve engagement, we estimate four to eight times industry average.

?In addition, by offering movie fans fun trivia we are able to educate fans and encourage them to share their knowledge with their social graph,? he said. ?The more you know the more you want to share.

?This is good news for studios as it kills two birds with one stone, driving trailer viewing and educating the base.?

Mobile entertainment
The Trailerpop app includes more than 20,000 movie trailers, including curated lists of celebrities? favorite movies, trivia quizzes and the ability to create movie lists that can be shared via social media. It is also integrated with iTunes for digital rentals and downloads, Fandango for ticket purchases as well as with Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus and Crackle for instant streaming.

Early results from the app show that most users watch one or two movie trailers each month while top users watch nearly 60 per month.

The campaign for The Family went live in Trailerpop?s iOS and Android app on Monday, Sept. 9 and runs through the film?s opening weekend.

During this period, there will be a special section in the app where users will be able to compete in trivia quizzes based on the trailer for The Family for a chance to win one of 100 exclusive movie posters from the film.

The special section will also include a behind-the-scenes look at the movie and its stars as well as a curated list of star Dianna Argon?s favorite movies.

Native ad unit
Users will see the sponsored content promotion in the top banner on their home screen. They can then click through to learn about the contest and play the trailer with trivia questions.

After watching the trailer and answering the questions, users end up at a leaderboard screen showing how well they did and a countdown clock revealing the time left before the day?s winner is chosen.

The movie tells the story of a Mafia boss and his family who are relocated to a sleepy French town under the Witness Protection Program and the chaos that ensues.

?For similar campaigns we have seen our users playing the featured trailer on average eight times,? Mr. Vlassopulos said. ?We were able to drive 11 percent of all views during the campaign for the sponsored content.

?Fans also enjoyed winning prizes; why watch a trailer on YouTube when you can watch a trailer on Trailerpop and potentially win prizes, it seems intuitive,? he said.

?We plan to offer this highly engaged native ad unit to agencies managing studio dollars and to studios themselves very soon. That way we can help drive not only the increased engagement but also access significant scale.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York