Television advertising can be prohibitively expensive for not-for-profit organisations, a hindrance that AWESOME Arts has managed to overcome through its partnership with three useful entities – a television station, an advertising company and a film company.
For the past two years, Network Ten, Cooch Creative and Cyclops Films have collaborated to create a television commercial for AWESOME Arts’ annual festival, worth between $150,000 and $200,000.
The partnership began in 2005, when a cameraman from Cyclops Films expressed an interest in making a TV commercial for the arts organisation’s festival, called the ‘awesome international arts festival for bright young things’.
AWESOME Arts general manager Carole Brearley said the project offered a freedom of expression and fewer boundaries than ordinary projects for the teams from Cyclops and Cooch.
“For both of them, it was about being able to work on an ad with less restrictions than they usually have,” she said. “We’d been partnered by Network Ten for a long time. They’d normally piece something together in the edit room. This time, Cooch developed the commercial, Cyclops made the film and Network Ten aired it.”
With the commercial on priority rotation, the festival’s profile was greatly enhanced compared with previous years.
“We got more than double the air time once the partnership began than we did before,” Ms Brearley said.
Staff, crew and actors volunteered their time and equipment for the project.
