The JFK Presidential Library And Museum: Clouds Over Cuba

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Branded Entertainment
Category: Best non-fiction program, series or film where a client has successfully created a reality, documentary or entertainment show around a product(s) or brand(s)
Advertiser: THE JFK PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY & MUSEUM
Product/Service: CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Agency: THE MARTIN AGENCY Richmond, USA
Art Director: Brian Williams (The Martin Agency)
Copywriter: Wade Alger (The Martin Agency)
Creative Director: Joe Alexander (The Martin Agency)
Director: Ben Tricklebank (Tool)
Director: Erich Joiner (Tool)
Executive Producer: Dustin Callif (Tool)
Executive Producer: Brian Latt (Tool)
Executive Producer: Oliver Fuselier (Tool)
Executive Producer: Steve Humble (The Martin Agency)
Agency Producer: Nicole Hollis-Vitale (The Martin Agency)
Agency Producer: Kristen Little (The Martin Agency)
Interactive Producer: Kristen Koeller (Tool)
Design Director: Matt Gase (Tool)
Technical Director: Bartek Drozdz (Tool)
Head Of Digital Production: Joy Kuraitis (Tool)
Music: (Plan8)
Describe the campaign/entry
Branded Entertainment can be found absolutely anywhere. Our clients at the JFK Presidential Library understand that competition for attention is fierce, so they encourage us to leverage the value of history and the emotional power of JFK's presidency to make our work visible. JFK was a firm believer in using new technology to communicate to as many people as possible. Staying true to that legacy is our formula for staying relevant and visible in a crowded landscape.
Results
Clouds over Cuba is an interactive documentary commemorating the 50th anniversary of The Cuban Missile Crisis, beginning with the 1959 Cuban revolution and continuing until the missiles were removed in October, 1962.
Along the way, the user is invited to explore 15 related topics in greater depth via expert interviews including Sheldon M. Stern, former historian at the JFK Presidential Library, and Sergei Khrushchev, son of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
As the documentary unfolds, nearly 200 archival photos, videos, documents and audio recordings are automatically added to a digital dossier for further review at any time. Smartphone users can link their devices with the film so their mobile dossiers sync with the documentary playback.
Visitors who wanted to follow the crisis "live" exactly 50 years later could import all the secret ExComm meetings recorded by Kennedy into their Google calendars, enabling them to "attend" the meetings live over the 13 days.
But what if diplomacy had not won out? The film ultimately builds to an alternate 2012 in which the Crisis escalated into nuclear war. This short film tells the intertwining story of four fictional characters who each remember the horrors of nuclear war in their own way.
We created a trailer for our film and initiated a PR campaign to generate excitement about the film and the anniversary of the Crisis. Outlets such as CNN, Wired, Fast Company and others all wrote about the film, generating global interest. Once the film went live, comments on blogs, Twitter and Facebook had a powerful recombination effect, leading to even more traffic and more comments. Earned media and organic viral effect are responsible for nearly all our visits.
Within one week we had visitors from 129 countries spend an average of 12' on the site per visit. Comments on Twitter came from a surprisingly wide variety of quarters—military historians, cold war historians, alternate history buffs, documentary film schools and filmmakers, interactive media specialists, digital storytellers—the story and execution were powerful in different ways for different audiences. And the discussions continue today. Since launch we've received visits from 182 countries, and the interactive film will take up a permanent place within the JFK Presidential Library in Boston.