Sony has sponsored the Tropfest short film festival since 2004. In 2008 their sponsorship centred on a new positioning: “Life is a story. Tell yours with Sony.”This idea turned the otherwise passive Tropfest audience into active storytellers, using their mobile phones. Crowd members were invited to text in storylines. These were then joined on the Tropfest big screens creating one big, very random story.

Over 100,000 people watched the hilarious story unfold live. More than 1,000 unique stories were received in just 3 hours (around 6 times more than we had time to actually show).

The campaign began by creating a positioning that connected Sony directly with Tropfest, but also had the potential to live long after the festival was over for the year:LIFE IS A STORY. TELL YOURS WITH SONY.From here we created a bold visual identity to unite the different elements of the campaign.We then developed a series of engaging promotional ideas that brought the proposition to life and allowed ordinary Australians to share their unique stories.

Sometimes with the lure of prizes. Sometimes just for fun.

With minimal advertising support, the pre-event online promotion received over 650 unique entries.

At Tropfest itself (Sunday February 17, 2008) more than 50 live Vox Pops were recorded with crowd members, and 20 were broadcast. The top story - as judged by Tropfest Founder, John Polson - won a Sony DVD Handycam.More than 100,000 people watched the SMS story unfold live at Tropfest sites across Australia. Over 1,000 unique SMS stories were received from crowd members with around 150 shown on the Tropfest big screens ... much to the crowd's considerable amusement.