In October 2017 we were tasked with helping Lionsgate and the Saw Franchise ‘take back’ Halloween with their first film in 7 years and the 8^th movie in the series – Jigsaw. We needed to reconnect the public to the franchise, drive as much awareness on social as possible and engage with new and existing fans.

The horror movie series revolves around John Kramer played by Tobin Bell, also called the "Jigsaw Killer" or simply "Jigsaw". Rather than killing his victims outright, Jigsaw traps them in situations that he calls "tests" or "games" to suffer their will to live through physical or psychological torture. He believes if they survive, they will be rehabilitated. Kramer communicates with his test subjects by delivering recorded messages through the infamous ‘Billy The Puppet’.

October is traditionally known as a huge month for film and after a 7-year hiatus from our screens, a large section of the target market were unlikely to have been swept up in the Saw movie franchise at its peak years before. We looked to directly mirror the sentiment of Jigsaw in our branded content, to play on the plot of the movie and draw the right emotions from fans to help scare, entertain and whip up anticipation for release.

We were able to secure sign off from Lionsgate studios in the US for the services of both the official ‘Billy Puppet’ from the movie and Tobin Bell, the actor who plays him, and created three videos with them. The first, a special trailer push, that saw Tobin talking to ‘The Hook Followers’, the second, a VR stunt to almightily scare popular influencers Goubran Bahou (aka Goubtube) and Jahanna James, who were blindfolded and led to the vaults at Waterloo and the third, a series of inexpensive pranks on an unsuspecting public.

The campaign won 8 industry awards and exceeded all expectations as it took the title of ‘Number 1 UK Film Branded Content on Facebook and YouTube’ in October 2017. In addition, it was the only UK and Film campaign to be in the Global Top 10 Branded Campaigns on both platforms in the week of 16th – 22nd October.

Our three videos pulled in combined reach of 16.1M with 5.2M views (5 x more views than target/minimum guaranteed) and an engagement rate of 3.3%, smashing the industry average on Facebook of 0.5-0.8%. The film stormed in to take the number 1 Horror film spot at Halloween in the UK Box Office, placing second in the overall standings just behind Thor 3. Jigsaw also went to number 1 outright in the US box office on opening weekend.

“We’ve worked with The Hook on a number of projects because they always deliver on producing the most engaging, cutting edge content. For Jigsaw, we wanted to celebrate the return of the iconic Saw franchise so we loved the way they brought the film to life for their audience and beyond in the most terrifying way, resulting in incredible levels of engagement. We know when we send them a brief that they’ll deliver and they certainly didn’t disappoint on the Jigsaw campaign.”

Nicola Piggott, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Lionsgate UK

8x WINNERS

Digiday Global Publishing Awards 2018:

• Best Branded Content B2C

The Drum Advertising Awards 2018:

• Campaign of the year

Digiday Marketing & Advertising Awards Europe 2018:

• Best Agency / Client Collaboration

Marcom Awards 2018:

• Best Social Campaign
• Best Social Video
• Best Social Branding

Social Media Communications Awards 2018:

• Best use of Facebook

International Content Marketing Awards 2018:

• Best use of Social (SILVER)