San Diego Film Fest

The Beginning

Picture this: it’s January 2020 and you’re gearing up for another amazing year at the San Diego Film Festival. You start the year with a sprinkling of events, from an Oscars party to local movie nights… and then March happens. We all know what happens next, right?

The Campaign

I was brought on the SDFF team in January 2020 to run social media and provide extra marketing help where needed. This included promoting their annual events, throwing out sponsor mentions, and engaging with the community this longstanding fest had already cultivated.

By the summer of 2020, it was clear life was not going back to normal by the festival date. So the team had to pivot to put on the one and only virtual San Diego Film Fest. Which still included upholding their sponsorship deals, hosting the films and their teams, and leaving their audience feeling like they had the film fest experience they’ve come to know and love. Not a tall order at all.

The Execution

With COVID putting the marketing team in a precariously dwindling spot, more duties fell on me to run the social media platforms and manage sponsorships. By the end of the year, we were able to…

  • Grow our social following on Instagram and Facebook, with noteable engagement from both audience and film teams

  • Promote local happenings like SDFF-hosted drive-in festivals and sponsor-hosted events

  • Build and host and entirely virtual festival, complete with Q&As from stars and filmmakers and special perks

  • Maintain SDFF partnerships with big brands like Jose Cuervo, Variety, and Jamul Casino

The Results

After a really weird year, the San Diego Film Festival provided movie lovers around the world with an experience they could write home about. Well, they didn’t have to do much writing, since it was literally in their homes.

The festival opened up the gates to a largely new audience who would’ve usually been constricted by geographic restraints. They were able to secure new partnerships with brands that continued to trust this film institution. And most importantly, they were able to show some really great movies (Nomadland, anyone??).