NEW YORK: IFC has set out to promote the upcoming six-hour documentary Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut), set to air starting October 18, with a robust PR effort, including media relations, social media outreach, and an event with original cast members. The cable network, owned by Rainbow Media, is promoting the documentary, as well as a 40th anniversary reunion event for all the surviving members of the comedy troupe on October 15.
"We actually started our long-lead outreach last spring and we did a spotlight in Vanity Fair," said Marie Stenberg, VP of PR for IFC. That exclusive was followed by mid- and short-lead publications, including coverage in the The New York Times, Bloomberg News, USA Today, and New York Magazine, among others. Broadcast coverage throughout next week is set to include Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, the Today show, and Live with Regis & Kelly, she added.The media outreach focuses on interviews with the surviving cast members—John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin—as well as the directors, Ben Timlett and Bill Jones, who is also Terry Jones' son.
Online, IFC is promoting the event and documentary on its Web site, Facebook, and Twitter, and it hosted ticket giveaways to the reunion event on blogs such as New York Magazine's Vulture. The network also hopes to live-stream the event, set to be held at New York's Ziegfeld Theater, on Ustream.tv.
"This is the definitive Python 40th anniversary and this documentary, it's a 6-hour documentary that really tells their story start-to-finish in a way that's never been told before," Stenberg said of the messaging of the campaign. IFC is working with The Dowd Agency on traditional media outreach and FutureWorks on digital and social media.
"This is the type of campaign that is unlike IFC has ever put together," Stenberg said. In addition to driving tune-in for the documentary, she said the goal of the campaign is "boost and promote the profile of the network."
