Norway's major distribution house Sandrew Metronome has put together its biggest promotional campaign ever for a local film in terms of product placements for the teenage movie Switch - launched this Friday (October 26) on 67 Norwegian screens.

Switch is the debut feature of Ole Martin Hafsmo who graduated in 2002 from the Norwegian Film School, the same year as his producer friend Jørgen Storm Rosenberg (The Bothersome Man). Highly influenced by Hollywood films from the 1980s, the duo decided to make a true movie for teenagers, a ‘Karate Kid on snowboard'. They also managed to convince the Hollywood-based Swedish actor Peter Stormare, to play a part alongside the young cast - the majority of which are unknown, with the exception of Espen Klouman Høiman from Reprise.

The story focuses on Mikkel, a 17 year-old boy who has to move to a new town by the ski slopes with his mother. He falls in love with the wrong girl, the girlfriend of the local town's bad guy, a snowboard champion. As a big snowboard tournament is to begin, he is taught by an ex-hippie (Peter Stormare) how to find balance in life and on the snowboard.

The NOK12m film produced by Rosenberg for Rubicon Film & TV was made in less than a year with the autumn opening date booked a long time in advance. "We wanted to get this window in the distribution calendar, just before the start of the skiing season," said Rosenberg.

Two test-screenings put together with Sandrew Metronome (SM) helped the producer to define the exact target group for the film: 10 to 20+ slightly more male oriented.

Line Andresen, marketing manager for Sandrew Metronome Norge said that this target group is very difficult to get hold of because of the strong competition from other films and other entertainment platforms. SM therefore chose for its marketing campaign the media that would have the broadest possible reach to the target group, including on-line and TV ads on TV3, TV Norway and MTV. At the same time, niche markets were also covered with ads in snowboard magazines and online. "Because of the subject matter and its setting, we managed to involve many sponsors such as Pepsi, Volvo, the skiing resort in Hemsedal, the sports clothes Helly Hansen and Helios Organic Food that used their own media campaigns where Switch played a major part. This is our biggest Norwegian film in terms of promotional partners," stressed Andresen.

The film had its Norwegian premiere at the Bergen International Film Festival on October 20 attended by the director, producer, key cast members and Peter Stormare joined the rest of the team last night in Oslo for the film's official launch premiere.

Sandrew Metronome hopes that Switch will reach a minimum of 150,000 admissions, an increase on the youth film Tommy's Inferno which they released two years ago which attracted 128,000 admissions.

The next Norwegian films to open are The Kautokeino Rebellion (January 18) and The Man Who Loves Yngve (February 15, 2008).

Click here to see the trailer for Switch.