San Francisco, CA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 11/13/2007 -- One of the largest independent film distributors in North America, Yari Film Group (YFG) saw an extraordinary 40 percent of people opt-in for information on the new movie screening of The Final Season through the use of Spongecell, a popular web-based marketing software that allows brands to better reach and engage their target audience.

“Spongecell’s media enhanced event pages enabled our studio to engage nearly half of all visitors to The Final Season screening website,” said Matt Gilhooley, director of Online Operations, Yari Film Group. ““It was amazing to see how Spongecell converted people’s online interest into offline attendance. By creating a promotional call-to-action, we saw a phenomenal response. We look forward to using Spongecell in future interactive marketing campaigns.”

Spongecell’s features enabled YFG to target and personalize its communications; track individual interaction with the event and continuously promote virally to the film’s target audience. More significantly, Spongecell’s functionality allowed all invitations, responses, comments, reminders and forwards to be automatically sent and tracked, while maintaining the film’s branding.

“The extraordinary success of YFG’s The Final Season screenings demonstrates the marketing potential Spongecell provides to brands, promoters and anyone doing business online,” said Ben Kartzman, president, Spongecell. “Our web-based marketing tool is a perfect way to create a dialog and a relationship between individuals and brands. With our powerful tracking tools, users can better target, engage and grow their market share. In the end, it all comes down to turning interest into participation.

“Our clients asked for enhanced tools for targeting different audience segments, so we’ve recently released a new suite of features to better engage consumers.”

The newest version of Spongecell, launched today, automatically tags every person based on the type of sale, event, promotion or activity they encounter – from concert tours, one-day sales, store opening, etc. – as well as what actions they took – such as adding the event to a personal calendar, inviting friends, setting reminders or opening emails. This detailed tracking information allows companies to better create personalized marketing messages for each consumer based on their unique interests and behavior.

Unlike other services, Spongecell empowers individuals to select how they receive the message – whether by SMS, email, blogs or web-based calendars such as Outlook or Yahoo!

For more information about Spongecell, please email sales@spongecell.com or call 888-680-7999.

ABOUT THE YARI FILM GROUP
Founded in 2002, The Yari Film Group has established itself as one of the most successful independent film companies in Hollywood, with over 30 films produced over the last three years. Casting top-tier talent in compelling projects with consumer appeal, the company is dedicated to ensuring creative freedom for its filmmakers. Currently, YFG is shooting the irreverent high school comedy “The Sophomore” starring Mischa Barton and Reece Thompson with Bruce Willis. The company’s credits include Oscar 2005 Best Picture Winner “Crash,” “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” The Pierce Brosnan-starrer “The Matador,” “Thumbsucker,” “Hostage”, “A Love Song for Bobby Long,” “The Hoax” starring Richard Gere, “The Illusionist” starring Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, and Paul Giamatti and “The Painted Veil,” starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.

ABOUT SPONGECELL
Spongecell is a web-based software application that creates direct, one-on-one engagement between brands and consumers and converts interest into participation in online and offline sales, events, promotions, and activities. Spongecell has been used successfully by Oprah Winfrey, Lucky Jeans, Yari Film Group, Flavorpill.com, and Shakira, among others. Founded in 2005, the company is funded by Halo Venture Partners, The Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG) and the Pilot Group. For more information, go to http://www.spongecell.com.