“Parallel Lines” was a campaign designed to showcase the cinematic qualities of the Philips television range. Directors from production company Ridley Scott Associates were asked to submit treatments of their own personal interpretation of a single, short piece of dialogue, which we provided to them. 5 treatments were selected; the result was 5 very different, cinematic short films, all with different stories, but all sharing the same 6 lines of dialogue. The films live on a specially designed website and play within a virtual Philips cinematically proportioned (21:9) TV. Each film is also interactive, allowing the user to explore the picture, sound and Ambilight qualities of Philips TVs. Trailers, Posters, Print, DM, banners, social media and a range of PR activities were there to drive people to the site and proliferate the message: “there are millions of ways to tell a story, there’s only one way to watch one.”

The campaign was promoted in the same way a film studio would market their latest release. 4 weeks prior to launch a 60” trailer was released online and in cinemas directing consumers to facebook.com/philipscinema. The Facebook page helped generate excitement in the run-up to the release of the 5 films and on the day before launch tens of thousands of movie lovers gathered for the exclusive Facebook pre-screening of two of the films and discussed additional content like behind the scenes photos and directors blogs. Offline, premiere-style screenings were held in cinematic venues worldwide. On the day of launch cinematic banners, movie-style posters and print ads drove traffic to the Parallel Lines website to experience all 5 films. A global competition has now launched on YouTube through which aspiring film-makers submit their films based on the same piece of dialogue, to be judged by Ridley Scott.

This campaign has built on the success of Carousel allowing Philips to really own the cinematic viewing experience space. One week into launch, the Facebook page had over 50,000 fans and there had been over 1 million views of the films on the campaign website or within the specially created 21:9 cinematic media player on YouTube (the first time a player of this format has been seen on YouTube). Many consumers have spent an average of around 5 minutes on the film pages at philips.com/cinema, a significant amount of time that demonstrates consumers have spent time interacting with the widescreen player. The content has generated a huge amount of buzz both on and offline and a bidding war has begun with 3 Hollywood studios vying for the rights to make a feature film of ‘The Gift’.