Producing A Short Film for ADHD Awareness Month

Meeting accessibility needs while producing a short story for Stanley Europe

As part of Stanley’s content strategy for 2024, they wanted our help creating evergreen storytelling pieces and, to capitalise further on this content, we linked them with key dates in the marketing calendar.

Part of the success of the Stanley Stories is choosing a compelling protagonist, which is why for ADHD awareness month, we decided to work with Ellie Middleton. Ellie certainly ticked that “compelling” box – she’s a multi-hyphenate who’s spinning a lot of plates, and spinning them well. Diagnosed with autism and ADHD a couple of years back, Ellie has since pivoted her life and career. She’s a public speaker, writer, podcaster, influencer and neurodiversity advocate.

Accommodating for accessibility needs throughout the production process

We’ve already got a smooth process dialled in for productions, but for this shoot, we wanted to take further measures to keep the day as inclusive and comfortable as possible for the whole crew, but especially for Ellie.

Some of the accommodations we made included: allowing more time for responses; providing time to digest the schedule; keeping the crew size minimal; choosing locations and crew members that Ellie was familiar with; and making sure instructions were clear and direct.

On the day, we were flexible, responsive and agile. We were pleased when Ellie reported that she finished the shoot with energy, rather than her usual depleted batteries. She also mentioned on a recent episode of her podcast that partnering with Stanley was a recent career highlight.

We met with Ellie in her studio slash office where we saw a glimpse into the life of a content creator. We also shot on the move – in a local park and in her favourite dopamine-filled cafe.

Guiding the narrative of the short film

To allow the day to run smoothly, we had a list of questions pre-prepared that we shared with Ellie ahead of time. She was keen to keep the link between Stanley and her personal brand as authentic and natural, so on the day, we spoke about how to integrate partnerships seamlessly into her interview. Having time ahead of the day to mull over her responses helped the interview portion run without a hitch.

It’s these pre-prepared prompts that ultimately guide the narrative of the short film. For this story, we were keen to focus on life pre- and post- diagnosis for Ellie – to show what a difference recognition can make. 

In Ellie’s words, “nothing changes but everything changes”.

Managing the social media roll out and paid social campaign

As part of our strategy for the wider campaign, we pre-planned the organic social media rollout for the deliverables. We generated hype with the teaser, following up with the hero and a couple of mini-edits and still carousels. These were posted across TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

The hero video was posted in collaboration with Ellie on Instagram, meaning both profiles could benefit from the other collaborator’s audience and authentic community engagement.

For the paid media campaign, we advocated for weighting our ad budget towards top-of-the-funnel ads. After all, these were content films that were always going to serve as great brand positioning pieces.

By setting up awareness campaigns, we elevated and added further value to the story-led content. These were built with the objective to be engaged with and seen by current and prospecting customers across multiple platforms: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Reaching 634,805 accounts

We were pleased to see that the Ellie Middleton campaign was viewed over half a million times, along with over 68,340 profile visits across Stanley’s social channels. The video was promoted as a skippable ad on YouTube, yet 18.92% of viewers still watched it to completion. We also recruited 2,030 followers specifically through this campaign, ultimately positioning Stanley as a vibrant, modern brand that appeals to multiple audiences.

Read the case study of our work with Savannah Sachdev.

See our work as Patagonia’s digital marketing agency.

Need help producing your next storytelling piece? Get in touch.