Situation
The UK Film Council first came to us when a major website build project they were funding was headed off track. Indeed, the very wheels of the project were falling off, and they urgently needed help.
The purpose of the site was to take film to a wider audience and inform them where they could download film legitimately to combat illegal downloading.
The UKFC had run a tender and selection process themselves, but after a significant amount of funding had been spent and time had passed, it had become clear that the appointed agency were not up to the task.
Action
Oystercatchers reviewed the situation and recommended that the incumbent agency agreement should be terminated. We recommended that it would more efficient to start from scratch and through a pitch process were able to find an agency that proved capable of designing and building a better website with a significantly smaller budget. Blue Barracuda were duly appointed and www.findanyfilm.com was born.
Oystercatchers were retained to help oversee the project and ensure the agency relationship stayed on track. The site is now acclaimed by the film industry as exemplary and is going from strength to strength.
Outcome
Oystercatchers have been engaged to support further projects.
For instance, we have managed the development of a value exchange between the UK film industry and brands, whereby funding for film production is obtained from brands in return for being able to use the marketing assets of the film - take Ford and Bond, for example. We set up a workshop with key personnel from both sides of the value exchange and went on to appoint FilmTree to develop opportunities with the endorsement and support from UKFC.
We have also advised on the structure and development of a new UKFC innovation fund. So as to engage them from the outset, we brought together over 50 people from the film industry and marketing agencies. The workshop was orchestrated by our sister company, Box3D, at the London School of Economics and moderated by Lewis Pinault. Lewis uses an innovative workshop process using Lego bricks to build out concepts and ideas in 3D models.