• by Karl Greenberg , April 19, 2013

A lot of brands are sponsoring -- and activating against -- the Tribeca Film Festival. The event, which started Friday, always brings in a number of brand backers and offers a lot of category exclusivity. 

Heineken has partnered with Vulture and New York Magazine to back five Tribeca Film Festival films -- “Flex Is Kings,” “Lenny Cooke,” “The Moment,” “Gore Vidal,” and “Alias Ruby Blade” -- a collection of documentaries and fictional narratives. The beer brand is holding post-screening events with the filmmakers, hosted by the chief film critic for the magazines, David Edelstein. 

Heineken out-of-home ads about the events are in such locales as New York City subway turnstiles, and billboards. Heineken also did a home page takeover of the two publications on Friday, and is also branding newsletters, festival guides, blogs, and running a social promotion on Vulture’s Facebook.

Cadillac -- which is reprising its auto sponsorship -- will, among other things, have a branded Tribeca Lounge. The automaker is also co-sponsoring with JetBlue a program of film premieres called Spotlight. Though it isn't a sponsor, VW gets its name on a couple of screenings at the VW Dome at MoMA PS1.

Consumer brands and media constitute the bulk of sponsors with the event’s 19 "Signature Sponsors" comprising brands like Bloomberg, Bombay Sapphire, Hilton, Pepsi, and Sony. American Express is founding sponsor. 

The festival organizers say that since it was founded in 2002, the event has brought in about 4 million attendees. When it started 11 years ago the festival brought in about 150,000 people. It reached 500,000 in 2007, according to the festival's organization, which also posted attendance of about 380,000 last year, although there has been some disagreement about those stats. 

Per Festival stats, last year's event included some 400 screenings and panels -- including 89 feature films, 60 shorts, with 116,000 people attending the films. The other folks were at street fairs, outdoor events, informational events and awards shows.