Pathé BC Afrique called on the Kawarizmi trading desk to promote the theatrical release of the Universal Pictures animated film with a large-scale targeted video and rich media campaign.
This is a first for a film release on the African continent: the launch campaign for "Sing 2" reached targeted audiences in 15 countries across the continent simultaneously, with results exceeding all expectations. To lead the operation, Pathé BC Afrique called on Kawarizmi, a specialist in offline, online,
and programmatic media buying, connecting brands to their audiences in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.
Combining native video, display, and rich media
interstitials with integrated trailers, in-stream
and in-banner
video formats, the campaign was primarily targeted at residents of cities with movie theaters who were interested in cinema. This complex operation was greatly facilitated by Kawarizmi, which acts as a one-stop shop for advertisers seeking access to advertising impressions in all countries in the region.
Ismaïl Tabi, Marketing & Communications Director at Pathé BC Afrique: "Tous en Scène 2, a family animated film that we distributed at Christmas, was the perfect film to launch the very first large-scale programmatic campaign for a movie in French-speaking Africa. The excellent results of this campaign on video formats reinforce our belief that our target audience is looking for strong content and that programmatic advertising opens up new opportunities in French-speaking Africa, both in terms of reach
and media buying in an international context."
An additional challenge for this campaign was the high cost of data in these countries, which is a barrier to video viewing. "To encourage clicks, we ran the campaign only for mobile users on Wi-Fi or with at least 4G," explains Hakim Hattou, co-founder of Kawarizmi and specialist in these markets. The challenge was met, as in ten days, for the 6 million impressions delivered, the click-through rate (CTR) on video (1.82) far exceeded the objectives and local averages.
Launched in December, "Tous en Scène 2" is the best result for a Universal Pictures animated film in 2021 in the Maghreb and French-speaking Africa region, according to Pathé BC Afrique.
About Pathé BC Afrique
The result of a partnership between the Pathé group, Franco-Tunisian producer Wassim Beji—founder and director of WY Productions—and Jean-François Camilleri—current president of Echo Studio, former president of The Walt Disney Company France, Benelux, Maghreb, and French-speaking Africa, and founder of DisneyNature—Pathé BC Afrique is a film distribution company in Africa, which began operations in October 2020. Pathé BC Afrique is headed by Benjamin Reyntjes and distributes a lineup of films from various film publishers, American studios, French distributors, and international sellers in the following territories: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Madagascar, Togo, Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Gabon, Benin, Niger, Guinea, and Congo.
Source: press release