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Hunter Ellenbarger didn\u2019t teach Logan Lerman how to talk like an internet girlie\u2014but when Lerman uttered the words, \u201cGirlie, that\u2019s a hard no. Mama, no,\u201d during a video shoot to promote the movie Oh, Hi!, <\/em>Ellenbarger knew he had social marketing gold on his hands.<\/p>\n Ellenbarger is the founder of Star Quality, the design practice and consultancy behind some of the social assets in the online campaign for the Sony Pictures Classics film, a romantic comedy starring Lerman alongside Molly Gordon that premiered in late July. Working alongside Sony\u2019s in-house marketing team, Ellenbarger and his team handled creator partnerships and creative shoots, producing five longform videos for Sony\u2019s YouTube as well as various short-form cuts and paid social ads.<\/p>\n While filming one of these longer interview-based videos, Lerman began speaking in internet, which Ellenbarger identified as a perfect moment to cut into an ad to prompt viewers to buy tickets to the film. That kind of tongue-in-cheek humor, which often hits best with online audiences, brought in more than 350,000 views on a single organic X post; Ellenbarger said the video ended up being one of the film campaign\u2019s better performing pieces of content. The video is emblematic of Ellenbarger\u2019s approach to marketing, which he describes as balancing the highbrow with the lowbrow.<\/p>\n \u201c[My approach] puts the talent, who are these Hollywood stars that people have grown up with, are seeing on acclaimed TV shows, and it makes them more peer to peer, which is how we consume TikTok creators,\u201d Ellenbarger said.<\/p>\n Star Quality began working with Sony Pictures Classics during its campaign for the black comedy Wicked Little Letters <\/em>in 2023, where Ellenbarger worked on exploring new creative formats for paid ads outside of trailers and teasers. When Oh, Hi!<\/em> came around two years later, he was called on once again to create bespoke ads for social designed to stand out from the crowd of film marketing online.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always filter our ideation process through, \u2018What do we want people to understand about this movie?\u2019\u201d Ellenbarger told Marketing Brew. \u201cI always have this philosophy of, think like a fan.\u201d<\/p>\n Being a fan of Oh, Hi! <\/em>meant focusing less on typical promotional material, like the actors\u2019 preparation process, and more on interpretations of the film\u2019s big themes, like creating an anonymous hotline for those with dating advice questions, which actors answered on screen. Ellenbarger finds inspiration from internet series that have already seen success, including Chicken Shop Date <\/em>and Vanity Fair\u2019s Lie Detector Test, <\/em>both of which follow easily identifiable formats.<\/p>\nLean in<\/h2>\n