This TV Network Hid a Surprise in Movie Credits to Find Real Film Fans

There are only two reasons why you’d stay in the theater until the very end of closing credits after a movie. Either you’re waiting for some goofy outtakes (which may or may not arrive), or you’re a serious film geek. 

To locate and celebrate the latter, French TV network Canal+ pulled a fun stunt. 

Working with BETC and MK2 cinemas, they inserted some fake lines into the scrolling end credits of several films. And hidden inside the fake lines was little gift—rewarding the stragglers for their true love of movies. 

Canal+ has always been committed to cinema. Its most famous piece of marketing—one of the great commercials ever made, also from BETC—starred a bear rug who dreamed of being a director as he lay watching movie after movie from his spot on the living room floor. 

Marketers hacking end credits isn’t super common, but does happen. One of our favorite examples came from Burger King and German agency Grabarz & Partner, which inserted the message “The Moral Is: Never Trust a Clown” into end credits of the horror movie IT. 

CREDITS

Client: Canal +
Client Management: Céline Pontygayot, Eugénie Rodrigues
Agency: Betc
Agency Management: Bertille Toledano, Guillaume Espinet, Marie Lequim
Executive Creative Director: Stéphane Xiberras
Creative Director: Olivier Apers
Art Director: David Derouet – Alphons Conzen
Copywriter : Adrian Skenderovic
Assistant Art Director: Alice Resseguier
Strategic Planning: Lennie Stern
Traffic : Nina De Wet
TV Producer: Mohammed Nebbou, Nicolas Lexa
Production House: General Pop
Director: Guillaume Palmantier