Waiting For "Superman" | Pledge Now

The film Waiting For "Superman", by the same filmmaker who made The Inconvenient Truth, is a great example of an indie documentary that has well targeted itself towards an audience outside of the 'film vertical'.

The topic of the film is the decline in the American public education system, and Waiting For Superman has made these smart steps:

1. Partnered with organisations
They partnered with organisations that support the topic, e.g. Get Schooled and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to name a few. This means the film gets free PR and promotion via each of these organisations, who will inform their members/customers about the film (who, as indicated by their affiliation with these cause related organisations, are in fact the core target audience), as well as pump out the association via media release and social media to the larger public.

2. Got behind a Cause
They created a 'pledge' campaign that draws a connection between someone pledging to see the movie to the gift of resources going to public schools. They've had 30,000 people pledge to see the movie since May.

• People are therefore persuaded to see the film knowing that the money they pay contributes to the cause.
• Evidence that the filmmakers are really behind the cause, not just making a movie about it
• A competitive element breaks down the pledges by city, so you can see if your city is getting behind the cause or not, and feel civic pride or shame (the latter spurring you to action).
• A pledge board reveals how much has been achieved thus far, amount of resources going to public schools, whilst aiming for even loftier targets
• The campaign goes further than the film, giving people options to help in further ways

Participant Media appears to be a key player in this element, from their website:

The Social Action campaign for Waiting for "Superman" will work with advocacy organizations, foundations and policy-leaders to offer initiatives for people to explore and be a part of long-term strategies that offer systemic changes. It will also engage audiences in immediate, tangible actions to help students in under-performing schools achieve better educational outcomes.

And the strategy for the Cause additionally invites people to volunteer at a school, donate books, mentor a child, or fund school supplies.

3. Conversation

Their blog, facebook page, and twitter account are a pretty great examples of "What to do". It's engaging multi way discussion, not a monologue just flogging the film (as so many other filmmakers make the mistake).

• On twitter they've got a #MySchoolNeeds tag going, so teachers and schools can raise awareness of the resources they are lacking. @WaitingSuperman retweets these to their own followers. On a side note, many teachers are doing this via Donors Choose, an education crowdfunding site "connecting you to classrooms in need."
• Their blog/news keeps up to date on education action issues that their audience would be interested in (n.b. this is rssed in from one of their campaign partners, so perhaps not as engaging / personalised as could be)
• Their facebook engages conversation by asking questions that pertain to their audience's life, such as "What was the best life lesson you learned from a teacher?"

4. Spreadability

One thing I like is they've created a widget that is easy for people to share on their blogs, and helps spread the pledge campaign.

5. Lots of PR coverage
If you google this film, you'll find tonnes of references on blogs and news sites to the various aspects of the pledge campaign, and positive reviews of the film itself. I'd say they've been successful at spreading their story in advance of release.

Now, I should point out that the film was picked up by Paramount in advance of Sundance in January this year, and it is probably their marketing team and Participant Media who have put all this into action, rather than the filmmakers. However, there's no reason why indie filmmakers can't emulate this strategy. 

What can be improved

What I don't like, is that the only way for me to 'share' photos or the video is by email, twitter or facebook - no embed or download options. This is such a small thing to do to help bloggers and journos talk about their film, so a big thumbs down on that regard. (The poster and trailer here on this post are from scouring the net, rather than from official sources!)

The filmmaker's own website (http://www.davisguggenheim.com/) has no mention of the film on it, and when I first looked at his wikipedia stub last week, there was nothing to reflect that this film existed (Wikipedia has been updated in the last couple days, and now has a reference to Waiting For Superman). This seems like quite an oversight, and one that is easy to fix.

At the moment the film is doing the festival circuit, with a New York & Los Angeles release on 24th September. It looks fantastic. But, this release date was something I had to search for, and I want to know when I can see it, here in Australia. If the audience can't find it legitimately, in cinema, on dvd, or by download, will they be tempted to turn to file sharing?

Out of curiosity I had a look, and found that it's been available via torrent since May. It hasn't racked up a huge amount of numbers  - perhaps their target audience are not the average downloader.

It does seem to me that an audience should be able to easily find out where they can see the movie via official means. And if the film isn't being released in certain territories, then to allow them to purchase via the internet. And, noting that in this day and age every film is likely to end up on a torrent, create a way for people who watch the film via torrent to then be able to pay for it after the fact (as the filmmakers behind Ink did).