Fiverr is back with another marketing effort that promotes the creativity of its freelancers.
This time, the freelance services marketplace enlisted movie studio True Twins to produce a short film that embraces the spooky season while capturing the essence of revival and creativity.
"The Retail Graveyard" operates under the premise that there’s one in every neighborhood — a corner shop that changes owners as often as the seasons do.
The campaign is designed to show how freelancers can transform these often-overlooked corner shops that struggle to survive in a challenging marketplace.
"At Fiverr, we always look to incorporate freelancers directly from our platform into our campaigns," Ami Alush, creative director at Fiverr, told DesignRush.
"When we were creating the concept for the Retail Graveyard, we looked for freelancers who could bring our vision of a short film to life and True Twins had the multidisciplinary expertise in filmmaking we needed to elevate the idea and tell the story in an engaging and artistic way."
An architect modeled the fictional city digitally on a computer to provide the design, sizes, and dimensions for the buildings.
A crew of eight artists meticulously cut, painted, and designed handmade miniature models, including:
- Neon LED lights placed inside tiny boxes
- Flowers sculpted from paper
- Trees made with hot glue
- An underground cave carved from Styrofoam
A narrow periscope lens was used to capture the magic of this miniature world, allowing the filmmakers to navigate between buildings and through tight tunnels.
Special effects were also created manually — from moving buildings to blowing out candles.
2D animations inspired by movies like "Batman" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" overlapped the footage, adding a unique twist to the storytelling.
Video marketing is an effective way to widen a brand's audience reach, with popular video platforms like YouTube and TikTok making the content more accessible and easier to share.
With Fiverr leveraging the Halloween season and a unique proposition with an entertaining animated video, it increases its chances of being noticed by its target audience, upping the chances of conversions.
Helping Small Businesses Last
The 41-second animated commercial opens with the narrator spookily saying, "There's one in every neighborhood, hidden in plain sight, with a haunted history of changing businesses."
The dark and red-lit visuals and ghostly effects complement the eerie voiceover, zooming in on a corner store dubbed as "the retail graveyard," home to many defunct businesses like:
- A joyful pet store
- A friendly florist
- A hopeful sunglasses boutique
"Before you know it, they're gone. Never to be heard of again," the narrator says.
The "Retail Reaper" is then introduced, one who put the curse on the location, which "can only be banished by summoning the ones of great power."
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The spot closes with a shot of people lining up outside the location, which is now an ice cream shop, and Fiverr telling small business owners to "break the curse with the help of freelancers."
As part of its commitment to supporting small businesses, Fiverr is encouraging readers to engage with their community.
Starting October 8, people can tag their favorite struggling corner shops in the comments of the "Retail Graveyard" post on Instagram (featured above), and the business stands a chance to win $5,000 in Fiverr credits.
In the spirit of highlighting transformation and revitalization, Fiverr also launched a cheeky out-of-home (OOH) campaign for the 2024 Paris Olympics earlier this year.
The “Paris, Not France” ad campaign saw billboards placed in towns and cities across the U.S. that share the Paris name to show that businesses in these small regions can thrive with the help of freelancers.
Editing by Katherine 'Makkie' Maclang
