INTERNAL FILM MARKETING STRATEGY · FY27
Make the child the center of the conversation. Launch the film as a movement-ready experience: prime trusted messengers, make it easy to share, and turn attention into measurable viewer signups and new audience growth.
EXECUTIVE RECOMMENDATION
Screener feedback from 136 pre-release viewers was strongly positive, and 90% said they would share or promote the film. The recurring strength was the combination of emotional storytelling and research. The recurring obstacles were cultural resistance, fear of appearing judgmental, film length and unnecessary barriers to sharing.
Marketing implication: build trust around the child-centered frame, then make the film easy to watch, discuss and pass along. Use the $284,000 budget to drive registrations for a free film, then cultivate those names through the Q&A follow-up videos and the discussion guide.
01 · STRATEGIC THESIS
Pastors, ministry leaders, advocates, fertility and family organizations, and trusted creators should carry the first wave. Their credibility is the distribution advantage paid media cannot manufacture.
Open with the question the film uniquely owns: what changes when family, fertility and policy are viewed through a child's experience? Adult behavior should never become the campaign headline.
The film costs nothing and requires registration. That single step is what turns a view into a name, and it is what makes the Q&A follow-up videos and the discussion guide a cultivation sequence rather than a download. The gate has to be one field and one click, because every second of friction between a shared link and the opening frame is paid for in lost reach.
The film should end in hope and agency: discuss it, host it, share it, or act on it. Registration already gives the campaign the name, so the Q&A videos and the discussion guide exist to deepen the relationship rather than to capture it.
02 · AUDIENCE
The audience architecture separates the people who make the film credible from the people ultimately asked to watch it. Treating everyone as the same “faith and culture audience” would flatten the plan into mush.
Host, endorse and contextualize
They need a credible, compassionate resource that helps their people discuss difficult family questions without creating unnecessary harm.
Private screener, leader briefing, host kit, discussion guide, content warning, sermon and small-group prompts.
Watch, discuss and share
They care about children, but may not have connected adult-centered cultural decisions to the lived experience of a child.
A free film behind a one-step signup, short topical clips, research summaries, stories, and a clear discussion path.
Extend reach and action
They already believe the issue matters and need a high-quality tool that can persuade beyond their existing base.
Embargoed assets, topical modules, speaker materials, research citations, and co-branded activation kits.
Reconsider the frame
Many have personal proximity to divorce, infertility, IVF, adoption or nontraditional family structures and may expect judgment before they hear the argument.
Child-centered framing, lived stories, careful distinctions, compassion, hope and practical conversation support.
04 · LAUNCH PLAN
The May 20 release is the public ignition point. The campaign begins eight months earlier by resolving the argument, infrastructure, partners and host experience.
One argument, one action hierarchy and one measurement definition.
A committed first wave with enough time to plan, not merely repost.
Churches and groups can say yes in minutes and know exactly what happens next.
The audience understands the question before release day arrives.
A public release becomes a two-week national conversation window.
The campaign develops a long tail instead of becoming launch-week archaeology.
05 · CHANNEL PLAN
The submitted budget names ten channels and five paid line items. Owned channels amplify; funded channels carry the acquisition and partnership load.
| Channel | Primary job | Required deliverables | Partners | Budget |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube | Attention + viewing | Teaser, full trailer, shorts, curriculum series, SEO and partner-site distribution | Internal / Salem / Bott / OnePlace | $0 incremental |
| Mobilize + nurture | Announcements, drip campaign, countdown, launch and post-view engagement | Internal | $0 incremental | |
| Social media | Conversation + reach | Trailer teasers, influencer shares, reels, organic and paid content | Internal / Katy Faust / Them Before Us | $0 incremental |
| Web | View + act | Registration page, film player, Q&A and guide hub, watch-party kit, analytics and co-branding | Internal / Them Before Us | $0 incremental |
| Influencer outreach | Trust + multiplication | Advance screeners, paid pushes, testimonials, UGC and launch kits | Urban Legend / individual partners | $64,000 |
| Church engagement | Host + discuss | Watch parties, resource guides, discipleship plan and denominational outreach | Catalyst | $34,000 |
| Paid media | Scale acquisition | Meta, Google, YouTube and CTV media with planning and reporting | Meta / Google / MNTN / YouTube | $141,000 |
| Screeners & surveys | Learn + prove | Church, college and Family Alliance events, AV, travel and b-roll | Internal / potential contractors | $20,000 |
| Inline audio | Context + frequency | Broadcast and podcast audio spots | Internal | $0 incremental |
| Radio partners | Reach + credibility | Paid promotions and audio spot placement | Salem / Bott | $25,000 |
06 · PROPOSED BUDGET
The final submitted budget is fully assigned across five funded channel lines. Paid media carries half of the investment, while influencer and church activation provide the trusted distribution the campaign requires.
22.5% of submitted total
12.0% of submitted total
49.6% of submitted total
7.0% of submitted total
8.8% of submitted total
Paid media receives the largest share, but $98,000 is deliberately reserved for influencer, church and radio distribution. The plan is built to borrow trust before it buys scale.
07 · MEASUREMENT
Calculated from $284,000 divided by the $4.73 viewer-signup CPA target.
41% of target film viewer signups.
Primary acquisition efficiency threshold from the budget.
Derived from the submitted budget and target count.
Required conversion from film viewer signups into new names.
Proposed church, university and organization activation target.
08 · RISKS & DECISIONS
Lead every public message with the child's experience; require compassion review on high-reach creative.
Screener feedback flagged registration as a source of resistance, so the form is a reach risk as much as an acquisition tool. Keep it to one field, skip the confirmation email before playback, let a shared link carry a viewer straight to the form, and measure drop-off between landing and film start as a primary metric.
Use a clear content warning, pastoral-care guidance, careful distinctions, and a hopeful post-film discussion path.
Use a strong trailer, chapter markers, topical clips and retargeting while protecting the full-film experience.
Require a dated activation choice, give them ready-to-use assets, and track delivery through unique links.
Use the April test window to validate creative and audience combinations before releasing the majority of the $141,000 media line.
Lock the event taxonomy, source-code structure, partner links and dashboard before trailer media begins.
Creative cannot rescue unresolved distribution, measurement or film-edit choices in May.
Approve the $284,000 channel plan and confirm the registration model for the free film.
Lock the campaign line, core proposition and post-view action hierarchy.
Approve the video player, the registration flow and the measurement architecture; name the campaign-page owner.
Resolve runtime, opening, content warning, subtitles and film-edit decisions that affect marketing.
Approve the trailer, clip system, Q&A video slate, discussion guide and leader toolkit.
Open partner recruitment and the screening commitment pathway.
PROPOSED OPERATING MODEL
PRE-RELEASE SCREENER RESULTS · 136 VIEWERS
The sample is 136 completed screeners: 89 from the online rounds, 26 from the ARC conference screening, and 21 collected on paper. Within the online rounds, 58 arrived on the general feedback form, 26 on the invited screener form and 5 on the Colson Center form. Neither the general nor the invited form records which event sent a respondent. Figures are per person, not per submission. Four submissions were set aside: a test record, two people who filled out a form twice, and one who answered two different forms. Each of those people is counted once, on their most complete response. Figures below are the share of respondents who answered that question. The conference screening used a different question set, so a few measures come from those 27 responses alone and say so.
Rated their likelihood to share a 4 or 5 out of 5, and 68% gave it the top score of 5.
Of those who answered the partnership question. The remaining 21% declined.
Named free distribution as the place the film would have the most impact, against 31% for streaming.
The top request across the 89 online-round responses, well ahead of short clips at 20%.
Chose hosting or recommending a screening as an action they would personally take.
Expect their peers to be very or somewhat receptive. 2% expect resistance.
Free distribution was chosen by 69% as the place the film would have the most impact, against 31% who picked streaming platforms. One respondent named the screener process directly: having to register by email and wait for a private link added real resistance. Price is not the barrier these viewers described. Waiting was. A registration that returns the film instantly on the same page is a different experience from the one that generated that comment, and the difference between those two builds is worth more to this campaign than any single piece of creative.
Across the 89 online-round responses the small-group discussion guide was requested by 73%, with FAQs for difficult topics second at 42% and short clips well back at 20%. The conference crowd answered the opposite way, asking for clips at 85% and research briefs at 42%, with guides far behind. Both are real, and the gap between them is the audience: advocates want something to post, churches and parents want something to run a room with. The guide now carries the larger sample and the larger share of the 500-screening target, and it is the asset currently treated as a line item rather than a product.
Small private discussions of 10 to 50 people were named the best setting by 54%, while 42% said the way they would distribute it is simply sharing the full film link. These are not in conflict. The film travels as a link and lands in a living room, which argues for one registration URL that works the same for everyone, plus a host kit built for a small group rather than an auditorium.
Viewers asked for Italian subtitles and other language versions, described the cohabitation and artificial insemination themes as directly relevant in Lithuania, and one German advocate said they would adopt the child's-perspective frame for their own anti-surrogacy work. Subtitles are currently treated as a film-edit decision. The screeners suggest they belong in the distribution plan.
| Signal | Top response | Share | Implication for the plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the film has the most impact | YouTube or free distribution | 69% | Keep the film free and the registration instant |
| Most requested resource | Small-group discussion guide | 73% | Build the guide as a product, not a PDF |
| Best viewing setting | Small, private discussions of 10 to 50 | 54% | Build the host kit for small rooms |
| Most likely action after watching | Share with my personal or professional network | 65% | Put the share path one click from the player |
| Preferred way to distribute | Sharing the full film link directly | 42% | One registration URL for everyone, no per-partner private links |
| Expected response from peers | Very or somewhat receptive | 69% | Plan for friction outside the base |
| Primary audience objection | No major objection | 35% | 65% still expect an objection to handle |
WHAT IS STANDING IN THE WAY
A quarter of everyone who named a barrier named apathy or the social cost of sharing, which makes it the largest single cluster in the sample and larger than any objection to the argument itself. Viewers described indifference, busy lives, a reluctance to offend family and friends who have already taken these routes, and a preference for silence. One put the marketing problem plainly: she did not know what the hook would be that prompts someone to watch a film about children’s rights. The share is the hard part, so sharers need language that frames it as care for children rather than a verdict on anyone.
Viewers raised divorce, IVF, surrogacy and adoption histories and asked where the grace is. One warned the tone could be read as telling people to stay in dangerous marriages at any cost, and asked the film to say plainly that it does not mean that. The post-film pathway has to answer the question the film raises for people living inside it.
Several viewers flagged the sexual abuse and rape testimony as a re-traumatization risk, and some asked for an age rating before it is used with students. This is a distribution blocker for schools and youth groups until it is resolved.
Feedback split between viewers who found the open too distressing and viewers who found it too slow and academic before the personal stories arrive. Opposite complaints, same diagnosis. The first three minutes need testing before the edit locks.
A handful cited length, with one noting most documentaries run around 45 minutes. None treated it as fatal. Chapter markers and topical cuts address it without touching the full-film experience.
Three viewers made the sharper version of this objection: that the film argues from a conclusion it had already reached. One called the messaging unbalanced and said the handful of adversely affected children shown fails to speak to the millions who have thrived outside the ideal family. Another, abused inside an intact family, said she kept thinking it ain’t necessarily so. A third predicted exactly this pushback and asked for research documentation to answer it. All three came from inside the faith audience, which is where the campaign is strongest.
Adoption comes up in eight open comments, and three viewers said plainly that the film gets it wrong. One read it as implying adoption splits families apart, one said it skips the hope of open adoption, and a ministry leader described a child who prayed to be adopted out of a far worse home. None of them disputed the film’s central argument. They objected to adoption being grouped with the arrangements the film critiques. This is the most repeated content objection in the sample and it comes from inside the base.
Viewers keep raising the film’s decision to argue from natural law rather than scripture, and they land on opposite sides. One called it the right call for a post-Christian country, saying scripture would stop many from finishing. Another said a biblical foundation is what would have pushed it over the edge. A third went further, arguing the film adopts a secular framework and ignores the order of the family set out in the epistles. The same choice is being read as the film’s greatest strength and its central flaw by people who all want it to succeed. The campaign cannot satisfy both, so it should decide which reading it is arming its hosts to defend.
The conference share of the sample has fallen to 19%, and the newest round came from a Colson Center online screening of churchgoers and parents rather than advocacy professionals. That is a better-balanced sample than the plan had a month ago. It is still a sample of people who opted into a faith-audience screening, so willingness to share proves the film can be distributed, not that it persuades anyone outside that circle. 8% said outright that they would not distribute it, up from 5% a week ago as the sample widened. Before the April media test releases the bulk of the $141,000 media line, run a screener with people outside the base and measure whether the child-centered frame moves them.
WHO ANSWERED
Role is recorded for 114 of the 115 digital respondents; one answered “N/A” and is left out of the table. Country was optional, and 18% left it blank, so the geography shares are calculated against the 94 who did answer. Select any role to see how that group answered.
| Primary role | Share of respondents |
|---|---|
| Parent or grandparent | 36%41 people |
88%Would share or promoterated 4 or 5 out of 5 54%Would host or recommenda screening 66%Expect a receptive audiencevery or somewhat Most requested resources
Preferred distribution
The largest group and the one the film is about. They want the guide and the FAQs more than anything else, and they lean to free online access. Two thirds expect a receptive room, the lowest confidence of any sizeable group, which fits people who will be showing this to their own families. | |
| Church member or attendee | 23%26 people |
92%Would share or promoterated 4 or 5 out of 5 65%Would host or recommenda screening 65%Expect a receptive audiencevery or somewhat Most requested resources
Preferred distribution
The most willing distributors in the sample and the closest thing to a volunteer host network. Nearly every one of them asked for the discussion guide. They are not the people who authorise a church screening, so their intent depends on a pastor saying yes. | |
| Nonprofit / advocacy | 17%19 people |
95%Would share or promoterated 4 or 5 out of 5 63%Would host or recommenda screening 84%Expect a receptive audiencevery or somewhat Most requested resources
Preferred distribution
The group that drove the early numbers and still the most uniformly positive. Most answered the conference form, so their resource picks come from a smaller base. They favour screenings first and a broad release after, not a single open launch. | |
| Educator or academic | 6%7 people |
Only 7 people. Figures are counts, not percentages, because a single response would move a percentage by more than ten points. 6 of 7Would share or promoterated 4 or 5 out of 5 2 of 7Would host or recommenda screening 5 of 7Expect a receptive audiencevery or somewhat Most requested resources
Preferred distribution
Highest demand for a classroom guide, lowest intent to host. They want to use the film in a room they already control rather than organise a new event, which makes the educator guide the thing that unlocks them. | |
| Faith leader, pastor or church staff | 6%7 people |
Only 7 people. Figures are counts, not percentages, because a single response would move a percentage by more than ten points. 7 of 7Would share or promoterated 4 or 5 out of 5 4 of 7Would host or recommenda screening 5 of 7Expect a receptive audiencevery or somewhat Most requested resources
Preferred distribution
Every one of them would share it, but there are only seven in the whole sample. This is the group the 500-screening target depends on and the group you have the least evidence about. Treat these counts as a reason to go get more, not as a finding. | |
| Business / entrepreneur | 3%4 people |
Only 4 people. Figures are counts, not percentages, because a single response would move a percentage by more than ten points. 3 of 4Would share or promoterated 4 or 5 out of 5 1 of 4Would host or recommenda screening 2 of 4Expect a receptive audiencevery or somewhat Most requested resources No data. Everyone in this group answered the conference form, which used a different resource list. All four came through the conference form, so there is no resource or distribution data for them. Useful as reach, not as a distribution channel. | |
| Media, law or independent | 3%4 people |
Only 4 people. Figures are counts, not percentages, because a single response would move a percentage by more than ten points. 3 of 4Would share or promoterated 4 or 5 out of 5 1 of 4Would host or recommenda screening 3 of 4Expect a receptive audiencevery or somewhat Most requested resources
Preferred distribution
Four people with little in common beyond not fitting elsewhere. Worth watching only if the count grows. | |
| Policy / government | 3%3 people |
Only 3 people. Figures are counts, not percentages, because a single response would move a percentage by more than ten points. 3 of 3Would share or promoterated 4 or 5 out of 5 1 of 3Would host or recommenda screening 1 of 3Expect a receptive audiencevery or somewhat Most requested resources No data. Everyone in this group answered the conference form, which used a different resource list. Three people, and the only group where most did not expect a receptive audience. That is worth noting given how often respondents name policymakers as the people who most need to see this. | |
| Health professional | 3%3 people |
Only 3 people. Figures are counts, not percentages, because a single response would move a percentage by more than ten points. 3 of 3Would share or promoterated 4 or 5 out of 5 2 of 3Would host or recommenda screening 2 of 3Expect a receptive audiencevery or somewhat Most requested resources
Preferred distribution
Three people, all from the Physicians Resource Council orbit. They ask for speaker and Q&A materials more than any other group, which suggests they picture themselves presenting it rather than passing it on. | |
ALTERNATIVE RELEASE MODEL · PROPOSAL
Them Before Us leads the film’s release to an audience already engaged in this debate. Focus supplies the creative, builds the biblical resource viewers are sent to afterward, and turns the attention the film generates into an ongoing body of content and a measurable set of new ministry relationships.
OBJECTIVE
THE APPROACH
The first hands the release to the partner. The three that follow are what Focus does with the attention it creates, and they are where the ministry value accrues.
Them Before Us carries the release to an audience already engaged in the argument.
Make these topics a recognizable part of the ministry voice rather than a one-time campaign.
Capture the interest the release generates rather than letting it dissipate.
Reach convictional Christian parents already engaged with contemporary cultural debates.
SUCCESS MEASURES
This approach extends the film’s reach through a partner with an established audience aware of these considerations and willing to advocate for it, while turning the investment already made in the film and its supporting content into a broader ministry opportunity for Focus. Rather than treating the film as a standalone release, it creates a connected pathway from awareness and exploration through to meaningful resource engagement and new ministry relationships.