In 2020, we teamed up with Picturehouse to launch their new film, Fatima, the historical drama of the Virgin Mary’s appearances to three children in Fátima, Portugal, over a hundred years ago.
Our task was to create buzz and drive ticket sales via social media for this 2020 tentpole film. We needed to develop social content that inspired, connected and elevated the film’s key themes to people of faith and fans of historical pictures.
To drive ticket sales and create buzz for the 2020 release, we created a social campaign of biblical proportions, with more than 200 pieces of content, paving the way for a successful trailer launch, which reached more than 14 million people, all eager to see the movie.
However, just one month before the movie's release, the world and Fatima were put on pause due to COVID-19. We had to pivot in order to keep up interest and engagement for four more months.
In the story of Fatima, the Virgin Mary appears to the children on the 13th of every month. And every May 13th, on the date of that first appearance, faithful from all over the world make a pilgrimage to the Shrine at Fátima. But for the first time in nearly a hundred years, no one could.
Working directly with the Shrine, we created “Together in Spirit,” a virtual pilgrimage through Facebook Premiere that transported people around the world to the shrine simultaneously. At a time when everyone felt isolated, our live broadcast united the world with a message of hope.
In the months after, we released content on the 13th of each month to mirror the events from the historical drama. These event-ized content pieces included an exclusive clip, a behind-the-scenes look of Andrea Bocelli’s original song Gratia Plena, and long-form video featuring the Secrets of Fatima.
By the time the movie was finally released, we had created yet another pilgrimage, only this time our faithful flocked to special drive-in screenings across the country, outperforming all expectations and making Fatima one of the top 10 films of 2020.
The videos created for the campaign reached over 27 million views and our live virtual pilgrimage became the best-performing Facebook Premiere event in motion picture history. Fatima’s message of hope, love and peace was enjoyed by people all across the world and created a much-needed reprieve from the events of 2020.
Some would call it a miracle. But we’d just say it’s smart marketing.
