Dive Brief:

• Adobe, in collaboration with ad agency Pereira O’Dell, unveiled a new film, "In The Time It Takes To Get There," promoting Adobe Creative Cloud and celebrating creativity, according to details shared with Marketing Dive.
• The 11-minute film was inspired by a contest for college students to create a movie poster that Adobe held launched last year, called the #MoviePosterMovie contest. The winning poster, by Sam West from Boston University, was chosen out of 1,000 submissions and inspired the film. 
• The film was created by comedian and filmmaker Zach Braff and stars Alicia Silverstone, Florence Pugh, Andy King from the Netflix "Fyre" documentary, and others. It takes a humorous look at social influencers in the 19th century. 

Dive Insight:

Pereira O’Dell and Adobe Creative Cloud took a unique approach with the new film, which the agency referred to as "filmmaking in reverse," by letting the movie poster inspire the actual movie. Crowdsourcing creative elements is a trend more brands are embracing to create emotional connections with consumers. Burger King recently teamed up with the Clio Awards to ask students to brainstorm the fast food brand’s next April Fools’ Day prank. Younger demographics often enjoy unique opportunities to interact with their favorite brands and share their opinions and creativity.

The film uses humor to demonstrate the power of social media influencers in helping brands engage consumers. Forty-three percent of marketers planned to increase spend on influencer marketing over the next 12 months, according to the Association of National Advertisers. Influencers tend to resonate with millennials, who consider them to be more engaging, trustworthy and authentic than celebrities. Marketers are attracted to influencers’ abilities to boost brand awareness, improve brand perception and drive sales. 

"In The Time It Takes To Get There" also points to how marketers are investing more in different video formats, including cinematic-style content, and teaming up with well-known filmmakers. Short films give brands the opportunity to tell their brand stories in a creative way, and videos often draw a vast audience that tends to skew younger. The Adobe film follows a similar effort by Mercedes Benz, which released a film, "Bertha Benz: The Journey That Changed Everything," to celebrate its history and International Women’s Day. Budweiser recently partnered with Oscar-winning director Spike Lee on a short film, "Impact," celebrating Jackie Robinson’s 100th birthday and raising awareness about diversity and inclusion.