Despite his best efforts to associate himself with every exotic locale besides Chicago, Ernest Hemingway was born and raised on the outskirts of the city, in Oak Park. The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park fosters understanding of the life and work of Ernest Hemingway. They believe in the importance of the written word and the value of thoughtful reading and writing.

Goals

Ernest Hemingway’s work is losing ground with today’s teens to modern distractions. The Foundation wanted to interest them in one of America’s greatest writers.

campaign

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Instead of fighting against shortened attention spans, phone obsession, and FOMO, we used them to our advantage.

We partnered with artists, illustrators, animators, and directors and brought Hemingway’s work to where this audience was, with five 15-second videos summarizing his greatest works shared on Instagram.

My role

I produced a roll-out plan, generating excitement for the release of each subsequent video with five-second teasers and amplifying local interest by inviting three influencers to have dinner in Ernest Hemingway’s childhood home.

Results

Our micro-film series led to millions of views and shares, worldwide press coverage (Esquire, The Discovery Network, The Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post, and Mic.com, to name a few), and even the adoption of the campaign as part of the curriculum in high schools across the country.