Film Branding: How the Estonia 100 umbrella brand influenced production, marketing and consumption of the Estonia 100 films

Abstract The Republic of Estonia celebrated the 100th anniversary of its independence on February 24, 2018. The celebration marked a significant milestone for Estonians and, as a way of recognizing this, the Estonian government implemented different marketing and participatory strategies for involving individuals and organizations to take part in the celebration. As such, individuals and organizations were invited to create special gifts for Estonia and its citizens. These gifts could be in the form of tangible presents or in the form of special events and cultural programs. The official gifts were marked by the official Estonia 100 (in the Estonian language: EV100) logo. One such gift to the Estonian population were a number of audiovisual productions that were enabled through special funding from the Estonian government, managed by the Estonian Film Institute. These productions included, besides 40 short documentaries about young Estonian inventors, one animation, six feature films, two documentaries and a TV drama series (EV100 2019a).1 This paper reports a study that explored the impact of the Estonia 100 brand on the production, marketing and consumption of these films and the TV series.