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 connect with both existing fans and more importantly a wider audience, Paramount Pictures wanted to: broaden awareness of the movie, harnessing eBay Advertising's behavioural targeting capabilities to isolate the right audiences and deliver relevancy and performance.

Use eBay's huge reach to broaden awareness of the movie and create an engaging and branded experience that showcased the trailer and excited the audience to win an 'out of this world' holiday to the US.

We developed an integrated strategic partnership to deliver maximum awareness of the movie amongst loyal fans as well as a new and wider audience. The partnership comprised of three elements: 1) Display advertising across specific areas of the site in order to reach multiple audiences in certain contexts. 2) A microsite hosted on eBay and included the imagery, trailers and soundtrack to the new film release. 3) A competition to win an 'out of this world' holiday to the US. The prize included sending the winner and a friend to embark on their own space adventure.

The Star Trek film was an incredible success in the UK, taking £6 million on launch weekend and jumping straight to number one in the box office charts. eBay Advertising played in important role in raising awareness online by promoting the movie to an audience of 16 million unique visitors. The partnership resulted in 20,000 visits to the microsite, over 2,500 competition entries within the first two weeks, a 40% conversion of microsite visitors to entries during the first 7 days and a 50% opt-in rates for futures Paramount Picture releases.

Results demonstrated that targeting and engaging consumers at the right time 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.