Blasting onto UK screens in May 2009, director J. J. Abrams brought us a new vision of Star Trek, the greatest space adventure of all time. As the eleventh film in the series and starring a new, emerging cast, high expectations surrounded its release. In order to reach both existing fans and a wider audience, Paramount Pictures wanted to use eBay's huge reach and advertising capabilities to encourage broad awareness and to harness our behavioural targeting capabilities to isolate the right audiences and deliver relevancy and performance.

Paramount Pictures wanted to: - use eBay's huge reach and advertising capabilities to encourage broad awareness - harness our behavioural targeting capabilities to isolate the right audiences and deliver relevancy and performance - create an engaging and branded experience with creative that drove traffic from the advertising placements to a bespoke microsite - showcase the trailer and excite the audience to win an 'out of this world' holiday to the US

eBay established an integrated strategic partnership to deliver maximum awareness of the movie amongst loyal fans as well as a new and wider audience, and engage them through a money-can't-buy competition to win a VIP astronaut training experience in the US. The partnership was successfully delivered with creative execution by agency PMA Marketing. Using the official artwork for the movie, PMA Marketing designed a microsite in HTML and Flash. The site was hosted on ebay.co.uk. A free-to-enter competition featured on the microsite and was co-ordinated by Paramount and PMA.

The Star Trek film was an incredible success in the UK, taking £6m on launch weekend and topping the box office charts. The movie remained in the top 5 for five weeks during which time it grossed over £19 million. eBay generated 20,000 visits to the microsite, over 2,500 competition entries, 40% conversion of visitors to entries during the first 7 days; 50% opt-in rates for future Paramount Pictures releases; CTRs of advertising formats reached 400% higher for targeted. Check out the SonyPictures case study at: www2.ebayadvertising.com/uk/case-studies

Results demonstrated that targeting and engaging consumers at the right time and in the right place can deliver huge brand awareness and interest. "We're delighted with the results of the campaign and eBay's contribution to this blockbuster movie. Maximising eBay's large reach, behavioural targeting and integrated advertising has helped us promote Star Trek to an existing fan base whilst attracting a large new audience." Deborah Sheppard, Marketing Director, Paramount Pictures UK.