To influence the LA film community, V Australia came all the way to the Cannes Film Festival.In the special Cannes Edition of Variety Magazine (the film industry’s daily bible), V Australia took over Variety’s masthead – for the first-time in history Variety changed the “V” in Variety – as we placed V Australia’s ad and promotional airline ticket on the cover.Five tickets were free round-trip first-class to/from LA - Sydney.The idea: as Los Angeles’ most influential members of the film community descended on Cannes and reached for their Daily Variety, they’d be hit with our promotion.

The target consumers went bananas. We heard stories of assistants being directed to find as many Varieties as possible and look for the free tickets.The Variety promotion was the talk of Cannes on the morning it broke. It was perceived by all as “very Richard Branson” to do such a thing.Immediately following the promotion, V Australia’s Los Angeles sales team saw a demonstrable lift in bookings (double-digit %), and multiple incoming calls from production companies and talent planning productions in Australia.The client was very happy. V Australia’s fun, profitable relationship with Hollywood was established with this promotion.