Cinema Swirl

Digital Strategy, Graphic Design, Illustration, Podcasts, Social Marketing

Cinema Swirl is a podcast created in 2014 by stand-up comedians Kefin Mahon and Sam Chaplin. Sam hasn’t seen any major Hollywood films, and Kefin has. Together the two look back on what some consider the greatest movies of all time.

From the release of their first episode in August 2014 to August 2015, I worked on Cinema Swirl’s marketing strategy, social media presence, graphic design and audio editing. As part of their YouTube strategy, I coordinated and animated several videos for their channel. Click here to see them.

Social:

Goal: Reach Top 10 UK Podcasts on iTunes

How: I led the strategy for gaining new subscribers to the podcast, as both hosts wanted the show to get in the top 10 UK podcasts on the iTunes charts. The way we achieved this was by using team psychology – a process proven to increase engagement and loyalty in sports. I wanted to experiment with this method in social, by emphasising Cinema Swirl’s audience as a part of #TeamSwirl and pitting them against an exaggerated enemy, in this instance, fellow film podcaster Mark Kermode.

We encouraged our listeners to tweet with the hashtag #TeamSwirl to spread ridiculous and over the top rumours about Mark Kermode, often using references from famous films. The full Storify can be found here. The results of the campaign were a success, and by the launch of Cinema Swirl’s second episode, we had achieved our goal of reaching the Top 10 UK Podcasts on iTunes.

Design:

As well as designing Cinema Swirl’s logo, I also designed their main merchandise, social profiles, voting polls and occasional online assets.

Editing:

I edited many episodes of Cinema Swirl; Jaws, Commando and more. The aim was to keep vocal tics to a minimum while including all relevant audio assets.