The marketing strategy for Matt Johnson’s feature BlackBerry required some out-of-the-box thinking.

“We got this person from Unbox Therapy … [with] 21 million followers [on YouTube] to open an original BlackBerry box to all of his followers,” explained Adrian Love, EVP and general manager at Elevation Pictures, during a panel discussion at the Playback Film Summit.

The panel, titled “BlackBerry: a marketing case study from title to screen,” was moderated by Playback editor Kelly Townsend and included the film’s producer, Matthew Miller of Toronto’s Zapruder Films.

BlackBerry had one of the largest opening weekends for a Canadian film. The film is produced by Zapruder and Rhombus Media and distributed in Canada by Elevation. IFC has the U.S. rights while Paramount Global Content Distribution acquired all international rights, excluding some select territories. BlackBerry has an accompanying three-part limited series debuting on CBC Gem and CBC on Nov. 9.

The unboxing stunt was one way the marketing campaign targeted younger audiences. The team dialed into the influencer strategy further with the casting of YouTuber SungWon Cho, a.k.a ProZD, to play an engineer in the film.

“I thought it was a crazy idea and I didn’t want to deal with bringing up [a] SAG actor and the extra expense … The guy has four million YouTube followers,” said Miller, noting that it was Elevation that convinced him that the idea was worth pursuing, while Johnson was already on board with the idea.

Miller said he instantly saw the benefit of casting someone who was “internet famous” from the engagement the film’s trailer got on YouTube and Twitter, related specifically to Cho.

Love and Miller also discussed some of the benefits of collaborating with distributors early on in the production and marketing process.

“IFC was the one who directed us,” Love said of the decision to get the Unbox Therapy creator on board, adding that it was, “the full circle of production, IFC and then our team coming together with that influencer campaign.”

Building on the point further, Miller said “it’s much easier to be flexible when you’ve been part of the entire journey and you’ve developed relationship and rapport and there’s trust.”

The panelists said that while the comedy’s marketing “pillar” was based around cinephiles, it had the benefit of appealing to many different sections of audiences, including the tech and business community, and even sports fans,

“There’s also a fairly big hockey storyline in this movie … so we did get coverage in the sports section,” said Miller.

The panelists also discussed the challenges that come with marketing a film about a brand, revealing that the team had debated changing the title of the film before eventually running with BlackBerry.

“Because we call the movie BlackBerry, it was very important that our key art, our trailer, nothing that we presented to audiences could create any kind of brand confusion. Meaning, no consumer could see our key art and think this is an ad for a BlackBerry phone,” said Miller.

WATCH THE ENTIRE PANEL CONVERSATION: Available to Playback Film Summit virtual pass holders: log in to the agenda, or register for the event. Sessions are available to view until Dec. 30.

Pictured (L-R): Matthew Miller and Adrian Love