The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a film about grand exploration and adventure, especially when it comes to stepping out of one's comfort zone. We wanted to challenge someone to go on a similar 'Mitty-esque' adventure – one that would take them to an exotic location and really push them to try new things and experience different cultures and traditions. #ProjectMitty sent two internet celebrities to Iceland (a prominent location in the film) to be the subjects of the first-ever social-media-driven choose-your-own-adventure movie promotion. Every activity during their 7-day stay was decided upon by the fans, all in an effort to promote the home entertainment release of 20th Century Fox's film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, starring Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig.
#ProjectMitty deserves to win a Shorty Award both because it exemplifies the current trend of bringing social media marketing out from behind the computer and into the real world, and it set a new precedent for how to do it best. In a first-of-its-kind effort, we executed a crowdsourced adventure, sending two social media megastars (iJustine and rising star - and sister - Jenna Ezarik) off to Iceland to experience an itinerary constructed in real-time by their millions of viewers around the globe. The stars of #ProjectMitty were experiencing an adventure similar to what we saw in the film - one designed to take them out of their comfort zone and push them to go on adventures and try new things.
When putting a heavy reliance on social media to market a major motion picture, it's imperative that you create something incredible to break through the deafening clutter and catch the world's attention. Traditionally, that was done by creating a shocking, surprising, or funny video that you hoped would go viral. Today, it's becoming exponentially more difficult to predict and produce virality. Rather than take a gamble on a viral video, we decided to fight fire with fire, and partner with two individuals who were professionals at creating sought-after content. This worked great. By teaming up with two bona-fide opinion leaders, we immediately had the respect and adoration of their vehement fanbase.
The #ProjectMitty campaign ran for 10 days, leading up to, during, and after the trip. In that short timeframe we worked with our stars to generate content that promoted The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and was specifically tailored to YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Vine. We saw our largest engagement on Instagram, where, at the time of reporting, we totaled over 800,000 engagements between comments and likes. In total, those two social media celebrities generated enough content over the 10 days that the campaign saw just shy of one million engagements before it was even finished.
