By David Levy
When Twisters hit theaters in July 2024, audiences around the world were swept into a high-stakes whirlwind of destruction and redemption. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos, the standalone sequel to the 1996 disaster classic didn’t just make an impact on screen—it dominated across social platforms, too, thanks in no small part to the creative minds behind its digital marketing campaign.
At the center of the effort was Warner Bros, working in collaboration with Tiny Hero on the theatrical digital campaign. Elif Balci, a Production Coordinator and Producer at Tiny Hero, played a key role alongside the entire team in bringing the project to life, both operationally and creatively. “We developed platform-specific concepts tailored to each social media channel,” Balci explains. “From there, I worked alongside our Creative Director to guide editors, graphic artists, and the finishing team to bring each idea to life and ensure seamless execution across the campaign.”
One of the campaign’s significant hurdles was also one of its most unique: tornadoes. While iconic and terrifying to U.S. audiences, twisters are less familiar in many international markets. To bridge that gap, Balci and her team leaned into education through creativity. “We crafted visually engaging posts that compared the size, speed, and power of tornadoes to globally recognized references,” she says. “Think: stacking multiple Big Bens to match a twister’s height or comparing its speed to a KTX high-speed train.”
That global-first approach paid off—not just in reach but in recognition. One particular idea from Balci turned into a campaign highlight: a video that mimicked an iPhone Amber Alert, disrupting the viewer’s screen as though a real tornado warning were incoming. The screen appears to “crack open,” revealing a high-octane edit of the film. Is there any result? An immersive, adrenaline-pumping spot that earned a Golden Trailer Award for Best Action/Thriller TrailerByte.
“That concept was something I originally pitched,” Balci says. “We worked closely with our editors and the Warner Bros team to bring it to life, and through thoughtful revisions, it evolved into something we were all incredibly proud of.”
Balci also credits the strong collaboration between Tiny Hero and Warner Bros. as a key to the campaign’s success. “It was a highly collaborative process, from weekly meetings and creative brainstorms to addressing studio notes and staying organized every step of the way,” she recalls.
In addition to its Golden Trailer win, the Twisters campaign was nominated for a Clio Entertainment Award and also shortlisted as Best Viral Campaign for a Feature Film. For Balci, the success lies in balancing spectacle with storytelling. “We built content that felt bold and native to each platform but always tied back to the core theme of the movie,” she says.
In a summer stacked with high-profile releases, Twisters stood out—not just for its jaw-dropping visuals but for a marketing campaign that matched its intensity, ingenuity, and global ambition. And Elif Balci was one of the creative forces making sure the storm reached every corner of the world.
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