Insight
On September 11th 1973 General Pinochet overthrew the democratic elected president Salvador Allende. Rather than being captured Allende decided to end his life in the Presidential Palace. On the 40th Anniversary of his life Upside television decided to broadcast a documentary: “Allende, an assassinated ideology”. French journalist, Thomas Huchon, has directed this documentary produced by Upside Television which is based on how modern Chilean society is today and their vision of Allende and Pinochet.
Allende’s story has been addressed repeatedly through documentaries, books, TV programmes but has yet to gain any traction. Havas Media's challenge was to promote this documentary capturing the attention of politician’s, journalist and reach 10% more viewers than expected. For this, it had to find a new way to connect Allende’s story with the audience to revitalise its image and generate the interest deserved.
Strategy
In 40 years Chileans are still divided into two different and drastically groups; the supporters of Allende and those of Pinochet. Two opposite sides and two interpretations of history. To promote this documentary, Havas thought of an innovative experiment to attract the attention of viewers and have people discover Chilean history in a unique way to show the two sides of the story. The agency created a unique experience with the very first double reading website that resembles Chilean society. Viewers of this website could either access the point of views of Pinochet’s or Allende’s. It addressed four main social topics when designing this site that of either Institutions, Social political, Economic political and Opposition. This intense contrast is being transcribed by texts and images that overlap and clash aggressively.
Execution
On the website there are the views of Allende’s social visions of society as well as the neo-liberal ideas of that of Pinochet. These two views are both struggling and creating a very complex reading situation. To get a better understandment of Chilean’s real life situation, the agency distributed a packet to hundreds of well know politicians, journalist, men and women. Included in the pack is a documentary portraying both visions as well as two pairs of interactive glasses to decode the digital site.
Havas wanted viewers to share their thoughts when interacting with this innovative experience. To get the history straight, it separated both groups and used 3D technology to remodel the glasses and added the colours of red and blue as glass filters. These two filters acted as revealers for Chilean society. When the red glasses were used, you were only able to see Allende´s point of view and in contrast, when the blue glasses were used you only saw the views of Pinochet. By separating both viewpoints, people were given the opportunity to better understand Chilean history and the culture of its society.
Results
As a result, 26 web magazines talked about the documentary such as Huffington Post, Rue 89 and Liberation to name a few. Also, the director Thomas Huchon was invited to present and talk about his work on some of the most prestigious TV shows. On the information Channel ITV, it reached an audience of 350,000 viewers and on BFM Channel reached over 400,000 viewers.
On the day the documentary was broadcasted the audience number was 12% higher. It also gained traction via social media. One of the most influential French politicians, Minister Cecile Duflot, tweeted about it and shared the information with her 164,416 followers on Twitter. Globally, it reached more than 1,400,000 contacts and all of his being achieved with an investment of only $15K.