In Time – ‘Time is Money’

Brief

Develop a PR strategy for Andrew Niccol’s film In Time, starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy, that successfully engages a mass audience. Come up with a singular idea which can be the focus of the campaign that involves offline, online, social media, paid media and outdoor advertising.

The idea should drive momentum and buzz about the film on the lead up to release over a four week period with particular emphasis on the week before release. Use the concept of the film – ‘that time has become the new currency’ – as key messaging to engage a mass audience. Develop an idea that embraces the film’s concept and allows the public to relate it back to their everyday lives.

Solution

Using the concept of the film we developed an online and offline publicity promotion giving a member of the public a chance to win ‘a year of their life’.

The rules were simple; start playing the game by ‘liking’ the In Time Facebook page and registering to play ‘Time is money’. Once a player was registered they were allocated 24 hours of time to live, which would count down in real time. Players would need to earn more time by finding numerical time codes hidden in paid media, offline advertising, radio, TV and on the official In Time Facebook page.

Once a code was found players would need to input the code into the specially built app on the In Time Facebook page to earn more time and continue playing the game. This time would be added to their existing time. Codes were given different value of time; for example some were 30 minutes, others up to 8 hours. Some codes also deprecated once they went live which meant players had to enter the codes as soon as they found them to ear the most time. A live leader board showed players’ positions. The person who finished top with most time on their clock on the day of the release of In Time would win £26,000, equivalent to the national average salary, or ‘a year of your life’.

We partnered with Bauer Media to promote the competition across its plethora of media brands including Kiss 100, FHM.com. Heatworld.com and 4Music TV. One week before the start of the competition paid media was run across the Bauer Media network promoting the competition alongside a strategic PR push. The competition launched with a cover wrap on Metro giving away the first time code, with the goal of hitting the early morning commuters. Further codes were given away over the course of the competition with users needing to search across online multiple channels and offline locations. The game ended on the day of release.

Results

In total there were 40,071 code entries over the competition lifetime with game the ending with 2,805 active users. We successfully engaged a mass audience across the UK across multiple media channels.

The concept of the film was successfully communicated via a focused PR campaign supported by a tactical social media engagement plan.