Project Overview
The film project, The Marker, is designed to warn businesses and individuals about the risks of being caught participating in a cartel and the serious impact on individuals’ reputation, career, financial position and family.
The film was published on the ACCC website and distributed to business on DVDs. A shorter promotional film/trailer was hosted on You Tube and the ACCC website to drive audiences to seek more information.
There was also a Video News Release including some footage from the film and interviews with an ACCC spokesperson and business stakeholders for the purpose of gaining free national television publicity via news and current affairs programs.
Project Commissioner
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Project Creator
Project Brief
The Marker is an exciting, contemporary and dynamic short film project about cartels and the consequences of participating in cartel activity in Australia.
When developing their campaign the ACCC realised that first class video content was required as collateral, to capture and convey an understanding of cartels, how they develop and operate, the damage they cause, the penalties for involvement and information for individuals and corporations to extricate themselves if involved in a cartel.
Shot in a contemporary Hollywood three-act structure with a linear narrative, the film tells the story of one man’s experience of working within an industry cartel. The film aims to engage its target market into further exploring the issues around cartel behaviour.
Project Need
The Marker is innovative as it pushes the boundaries of a standard corporate video. More than being a solely an educational video, The Marker’s narrative is very strong with the implementation of a contemporary Hollywood three-act structure with a linear narrative. This added a new and exciting angle to the traditional corporate video and brought a new outcome to the market.
The narrative, needed to propel the viewer along a journey of discovery. The content was designed to motivate the viewer to navigate to the ACCC website and the process of notifying the ACCC if involved in these practices.
With all this in mind, Burning House developed a strong and creative story and script as part of a development phase prior to commencement of production.
The Marker is classed in the ‘thriller’ genre and so the narrative drives the story. Our protagonist acts as if he is narrator by telling his story to ACCC representatives in an interview room. This device gives great insight into the protagonist’s emotional state and the dilemma he faces in reporting his findings to the ACCC. This offers a completely fresh outcome to the market of corporate video.
Design Challenge
Given the time poor, educated nature of the target audience, the danger with this video content was either overestimating the viewers existing understanding of the subject or conversely overloading the viewer with too much information resulting in a lack of retention and understanding.
As such the brief demanded that we capture the attention of the viewer and retain their interest but importantly the films must be more than just engaging entertainment. It must propel the viewer along a journey of discovery as they are exposed to specific information relating to Cartels and in particular the process of notifying the ACCC if involved in such unfair business practices.
Sustainability
While we wanted The Marker to have the look and feel of an international production it was important to us that we used all local crew and locations.
Tags
Film - Branded Content/Viral
This award celebrates creative and innovative visual and audio branded content and/or viral communications that place an emphasis on design values. Consideration given to the technical, conceptual and aesthetic elements, viewer engagement and message delivery.
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