Case Study
Chasing Time
How we drove over 1 million film views and re-engaged a decade-old fan base for Exposure Labs’ newest climate film
At a Glance
Client:
Exposure Labs is the social impact film studio behind some of the most recognized climate documentaries of the last decade, including Chasing Ice and The Social Dilemma.
What We Did:
End-to-end social and email campaign execution, advertising strategy, and creator partnerships
Headline result:
1 million+ views on YouTube and 1.1 million+ social views.
The Challenge
A new film with a legacy audience to reactivate and a new generation to reach.
Chasing Time is the successor to Chasing Ice, Exposure Labs’ Emmy-winning 2012 climate documentary. But more than a decade had passed since Chasing Ice introduced audiences to the visual reality of climate change, and the world, the platforms, and the climate conversation had all moved several times over.
Exposure Labs needed a campaign that could do two things at once: reawaken the fanbase that made Chasing Ice a phenomenon, and pull in a new generation of climate activists, photography lovers, and social impact film audiences who had never encountered the original.
The Gallery
The Work
Leveraging multiple audiences
We tailored content to engage the audiences Exposure Labs had built across previous film releases, producing graphics and direct-to-camera videos designed for social impact film fans. By leveraging the social platforms behind Exposure Labs' most popular projects, we made sure no fan of social impact film was left unaware of Chasing Time. When the film premiered on YouTube, we developed an advertising strategy that re-engaged Exposure Labs' core audience by targeting those familiar with the channel's most popular videos.
Influencer and amplification partnerships
We led outreach and coordination with targeted influencers, educators, and content partners to distribute glacier time-lapse clips, and developed an amplification toolkit (social copy, assets, and messaging guide) to keep partner distribution on-message. For the World Glacier Day push, we identified aligned partners for the YouTube drop and coordinated timing and messaging across the network.
Building real anticipation
We built a content distribution plan that thoughtfully teased the film's most visually striking clips, sparking conversation across platforms without overwhelming feeds. The approach was simple and elegant by design: serve the audience attention-grabbing content, then let the film do the rest.
Email engagement
We kept emails concise and visual-heavy with clear calls to action and bold headlines, building a steady drumbeat of release announcements, behind-the-scenes drops, and World Glacier Day moments to keep the audience activated through both campaign phases.
The Results
1 million+ film views.
Our social and advertising strategy pulled more than one million viewers to Chasing Time on YouTube, re-engaging the Chasing Ice phenomenon’s core audience and bringing in a new generation of climate activists.
1 million+ social views.
Across platforms, we engaged over 1.1 million climate activists, photography admirers, and film fans through tailored, thoughtful social content.
21,000+ direct content interactions.
Our content did more than drive traffic to Chasing Time’s YouTube release. It sparked commentary and shares that expanded Exposure Labs’ audience, generating over 21,000 interactions throughout the campaign.
30,000+ email audience members engaged.
Carefully-timed email alerts engaged more than 30,000 climate leaders and film fans.