Unity masterminds promotion of new Star Wars film worldwide

Unity, the strategic communications agency, emerged this week as

the brains behind the global marketing launch of the new Star Wars film,

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

The project, believed to involve a spend of around dollars 100 million,

marks Unity’s biggest project since it launched in 1997.

The agency, which is run by Andy Tilley, Derek Morris and Ivan Pollard,

has been responsible for the entire communications plan for George

Lucas’s sci-fi blockbuster, which opened in the US this week. The agency

has advised on who the film’s target audience is, how much should be

spent on advertising and marketing the film, which channels should be

used and how advertising and publicity should work together.

Unity was appointed by Jim Ward, the marketing director of the film’s

production company, Lucasfilm.

The agency then worked with the film’s distributors, Fox International,

to brief each of the local markets. Pollard told Campaign: ’It’s the

biggest, most exciting project we’ve worked on.’

In the UK, the campaign was overseen by Fox’s UK marketing director,

Simon Hewlett, and the media agency, MediaVest. The planning

consultancy, Red Spider, was also employed by Lucasfilm to produce

market research on the global target audience for Star Wars.

Separately, Unity has also been appointed to work on the brand strategy

for BSkyB’s technology TV channel, .tv, alongside the media agency,

Rocket.

Tilley explained: ’We are looking at what the brand needs in terms of

total communications support - the advertising, PR, trade and consumer

routes to market.’

Comic Relief has also briefed Unity to work on a project for the ’drop

the debt’ campaign, looking at how the charity can lobby the Government

on the issue of Third World debt.

This article was first published on Campaign