Campaign Strategy / Audience Development / Sponsorship Acquisition
Fire on the Hill
Preamble Pictures & PBS — Documentary Launch & Distribution Campaign
CLIENT
Preamble Pictures
DISTRIBUTOR
PBS
ENGAGEMENT
3 Months
ROLE
Digital Campaign Strategist
THE BRIEF
Fire on the Hill is a feature documentary chronicling the resilient culture of Black rodeo in America. The film had earned its PBS debut — a significant milestone — but the campaign infrastructure to support it simply didn’t exist. Social accounts were dormant, audience momentum had stalled, and without a coordinated distribution push, the premiere risked landing quietly in markets where the story deserved to resonate loudly.
Preamble Pictures brought me in with three clear objectives: activate the existing audience and cast network to drive awareness among uninitiated viewers, build distribution reach to maximize premiere viewership across PBS markets, and use that momentum as leverage to attract corporate sponsorship.
THE CHALLENGE
The social accounts had an audience on paper (roughly 1,000 followers) but little to show for it. Previous content had generated under 100 impressions per post, with negligible engagement, sharing, or community interaction. There was no consistent content cadence, no messaging framework connecting the film to its premiere windows, and no geo-targeted infrastructure to turn national PBS scheduling into local urgency.
The window was short. PBS air dates were locked in and don’t move. We had approximately 12 weeks to build something from near-zero and make it count.
“We needed the premiere to perform…not just for opening night, but to prove the film had an audience worth investing in.”
MY ROLE
- Developed full digital campaign strategy and content framework for the PBS premiere
- Produced and deployed geo-targeted paid social campaigns aligned to PBS market air times in key DMAs
- Created trailers, organic social content, and cast activation assets to leverage talent networks
- Leveraged PBS TRAC and Carriage data to identify and prioritize the top 50 distribution markets
- Designed messaging architecture to connect the film’s story to new, uninitiated audiences
- Coordinated outreach strategy to support ongoing sponsor acquisition conversations
Organic content for PBS market premieres
Organic social campaign content
Geo-targeted paid media for PBS market premieres
IMPACT & RESULTS
The premiere performed well enough that PBS didn’t just air the film, they committed. Fire on the Hill was picked up for a full two year run across more than 90 of PBS’s top DMA markets, with a scheduling regularity that spoke directly to the strength of its debut numbers. Further, the film was given special additional primetime airing slots during Black History Month programing and leading up to Juneteenth. The success of the initial campaign and airing run led to a distribution renewal that put the film in front of millions of viewers who would never have discovered it otherwise.
SOCIAL REACH GROWTH
ENGAGEMENT INCREASE
PBS MARKETS SECURED
PBS PICKUP RUN
On the sponsorship front, the audience metrics unlocked conversations with major western lifestyle and heritage brands, along with a confirmed partnership with the Gene Autry Foundation, whose brand alignment with the film’s subject matter made them a natural fit.
Production still from Fire on the Hill
CONCLUSION
In three months, a film that had no digital momentum became a two year long fixture on one of the most respected broadcast networks in the country. The lesson here isn’t really about social media campaigns, but more so what happens when you build the right story infrastructure around compelling work. Distribution reach and sponsorship confidence follow audience conviction. This campaign helped build that conviction, market by market.