‘Steal’ Marketing Strategy Aimed at Fulfilling Multiple Goals

Filmmakers, with few marketing dollars to spend, crafted a promotional campaign for “Steal This Movie!” that they feel is compatible with both the prankster spirit of Abbie Hoffman and his call for political activism. They centered the campaign around three approaches: a Web site (https://www.stealthismovie.com) featuring links to material of interest to those involved in liberal political causes; a series of pre-release screenings for political, environmental and student action groups; and a handful of TV commercials that resurrect one of Hoffman’s favorite gags--a fictional presidential campaign featuring a pig.

Producer-director Robert Greenwald says the commercials will run in local markets throughout the country later this month and into the fall. He calls them a light-hearted attempt to bring back “Pigasus,” the swine that Hoffman’s yippie party “ran” against Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey in 1968.

“OK, the pig isn’t the original Pigasus,” Greenwald concedes. “But then again, this is the year of political nepotism--George Bush and Al Gore both had fathers who were prominent politicians. We thought we’d run the daughter of Pigasus this year, and put clips from the Pigasus scenes in the movie into the commercials.”

The dozens of screenings for a wide range of political groups earlier this year were a more serious attempt to promote the film and Hoffman’s political commitment. Greenwald and distributor Lions Gate Films made the movie available for screenings by groups like Refuse & Resist in Philadelphia (just prior to the Republican convention in late July), Seattle’s Community Action Network, the Green Party, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and a three-day “free speech” event in Boulder, Colo., in April, which included a speech by former Black Panther and Chicago 8 defendant Bobby Seale. Additional screenings were being scheduled for Los Angeles this week, for several groups planning protests during the Democratic convention.

Greenwald says such screenings are “a logical way to promote the film and walk the walk regarding all the things that Abbie Hoffman believed in--a perfect example of serving multiple goals at the same time.”