Blending product innovation and immersive storytelling to drive cultural relevance and ticket sales for a holiday, horror tentpole theatrical release.
Focus Features, known for championing auteur-driven films with cultural weight, approached TikTok with its most ambitious release of 2024: Nosferatu. In addition to building awareness, the goal was to create urgency, eventize moviegoing, and turn a stylized horror film into a box office hit.
With younger, digital-first audiences at the heart of the strategy, Focus Features wanted to move beyond traditional advertising with a campaign that delivered cultural impact, high creative standards, and measurable box office results. TikTok answered with a bold, full-funnel campaign that blurred the lines between digital and IRL, paid and organic, anchored in authenticity, storytelling, and performance at every touchpoint.
TikTok crafted a custom, full-funnel campaign for Focus Features, blending the platform's most powerful ad formats with creator tools and real-world immersive experiences. Every phase of the campaign was purpose-built from igniting curiosity and building fandom to driving ticket sales. The strategy included:
Three TopView ads timed to key windows for maximum impact.
Spanish-language creative and product activations to authentically engage multicultural audiences.
Cross-category Pulse placements to sustain awareness and reach.
A Branded Effect that invited active participation and content creation.
An immersive gothic-themed in-real-life (IRL) activation that sparked organic storytelling.
The first-ever Magic Hub in Media & Entertainment, centralizing fan engagement.
A pioneering Cinemark in-app ticketing integration, closing the loop from awareness to purchase.
This ambitious, cross-functional campaign not only generated awareness; it inspired fandom and drove measurable box office success.
To build early buzz and reignite excitement at launch, Focus Features deployed a strategic three-part TopView approach. The campaign kicked off with an early awareness TopView featuring the full-length trailer, optimized with TikTok-native elements like bold text overlays and pacing perfectly tuned for the For You feed.
As release day neared, a second English-language TopView spotlighted premiere red carpet moments and included clear calls-to-action to buy tickets. At the same time, a third TopView in Spanish engaged core multicultural audiences, ensuring every key viewer felt directly addressed.
Each TopView hit the audience at just the right moment with just the right message, stoking anticipation early and driving urgent ticket purchases closer to release.
Knowing Hispanic audiences are a powerhouse for horror, Focus Features doubled down on authentic multicultural storytelling through TikTok-first Spanish-language creative. The campaign paired a Spanish-language Pulse, strategically placed amid culturally relevant content, with a high-impact Spanish TopView timed perfectly for the week of release.
Spanish text overlays and localized assets made the experience feel natural and personal. Adding to the buzz, talent-led content invited fans to join the conversation, igniting excitement well ahead of Christmas Day.
Midway through, the campaign unveiled a chilling Branded Effect inspired by Nosferatu's most iconic visuals—blood-red eyes and a dripping mouth—set to the film's eerie, haunting score. Striking the perfect balance between creepy and playful, this Branded Effect empowered users to embody the film's gothic aesthetic, sparking waves of creativity and viral participation.
Far from a one-off gimmick, the Branded Effect took center stage within the Magic Hub, amplifying discovery and inviting fans to engage organically. Without paid boosts, it ignited a surge of user-generated content that transformed passive viewers into active storytellers.
To bring Nosferatu's haunting world off-screen and into reality, TikTok and Focus Features partnered to create House of Boo, an exclusive, cinematic event inside a real crypt at NYC's historic Church of the Intercession. Over two unforgettable nights, 120+ creators, industry insiders, and press were immersed in a gothic spectacle featuring live actors, fog-shrouded graveyards, film projections, haunting soundscapes, and a curated four-course dinner.
What set House of Boo apart? Creators were never asked or required to post. Instead, the event's breathtaking atmosphere and narrative authenticity naturally inspired a surge of genuine, organic content, bringing Nosferatu's eerie mystique to life on TikTok's For You page.
To centralize all campaign touchpoints, TikTok launched the first-ever Magic Hub for a media and entertainment brand. Custom-built for Nosferatu, the Hub featured character cards, a Branded Effect widget, content from creators, and even exclusive talent assets from stars Nicholas Hoult and Lily-Rose Depp. Most importantly, it included a direct "Get Tickets" integration that allowed users to take action.
This Hub was live throughout the campaign lifecycle, functioning as a digital destination for fans to dive deeper into the film's world and engage in a way no standard landing page could match.
To turn buzz into box office sales, TikTok launched the first-ever Cinemark in-app ticketing integration for a studio release. This seamless experience let users buy Nosferatu tickets without ever leaving the app, removing friction and capturing intent at its peak.
This integration, featured prominently in the Magic Hub and supported by direct-response media, created a new kind of digital storefront for theatrical tickets.
By weaving TikTok's full-funnel product offering into a seamless ecosystem, Nosferatu gained a unique cultural edge. TikTok connected audiences from first discovery to ticket purchase, with every tactic amplifying the others.
The result? A campaign that shattered new ground on the platform and helped Nosferatu become Focus Features' second highest-grossing film ever.
More than a film marketing triumph, this campaign demonstrated how brands across industries can harness TikTok's immersive storytelling, vibrant communities, and commerce capabilities—all in one place—to turn cultural ideas into real-world momentum.
Focus Features' phased TopView approach drove more than awareness; it fueled intent and box office impact. Each placement guided viewers down the funnel, resulting in an 18% lift in Ad Recall, 8% lift in Awareness, and 5% lift in Preference, signaling greater intent to see Nosferatu in theaters.
The campaign's Spanish-language strategy went beyond broad reach to deeply connect with a key audience. By leaning into Spanish language and culture, the campaign drove both attention and action, including a 62% longer average watch time than media and entertainment TopView benchmarks and 71% greater reach through Spanish-language Pulse placements.
The Branded Effect captivated casual scrollers and horror enthusiasts alike, compelling them to engage with and co-create immersive content. Its spine-tingling visuals and atmospheric soundtrack generated a 110% higher engagement rate than Branded Effect benchmarks and over 5,000 unique video creations.
The House of Boo showed how an authentically immersive IRL activation can fuel sustained digital buzz. The absence of posting mandates sparked creative freedom, resulting in emotionally rich content from top-tier creators, including 80+ organic TikTok videos and 70+ minutes of content recorded on-site.
The Magic Hub became the campaign's interactive nerve center, connecting fans to content, community, and commerce in a single scrollable space. As new creative assets and features rolled out, fans kept returning, exploring, and engaging, resulting in more than 53,000 total views, 48,000 unique visitors, and a 2+ minute average session duration, exceeding platform benchmarks.
The Cinemark integration closed the loop from awareness to purchase, transforming excitement into action with a streamlined checkout flow. This gave Focus Features a competitive edge in driving conversions and measuring real-time ROI.
The integration drove 27% more efficient CPA than entertainment benchmarks, nearly 8,000 ticket conversions, and provided Focus Features with valuable real-time insight into lower-funnel performance, informing future data-driven strategies.