The Movies for Grownups Awards is an awards show that AARP hosts each year to spotlight films and television shows that speak directly to the 50-plus audience. Without grownup audiences, movies and TV shows that qualify as art would not survive. Thanks to AARP and its viewers, there’s more to Hollywood than young stars in superhero spandex.
Sheryl Lee Ralph won the 2023 Movies for Grownups award for Best Television Actress for her role in Abbott Elementary at the age of 65. With this video, we wanted to accomplish two goals. First, we wanted to drive people to tune in to the Movies for Grownups Awards Show aired on PBS. Secondly, we wanted to inspire our audience with Ralph’s story of career reinvention in her 60s and how it's never too late to achieve one’s dreams.
In addition to capturing Ralph winning her Award, we also conducted a backstage interview with her asking about her path to success in Hollywood. This allowed us to create a video that interspersed her win with the backstory of that win. We edited her segment to highlight her persistence in achieving her career dreams as she aged, knowing that this was what would resonate most powerfully with our audience.
We edited and formatted this video for multiple platforms across AARP’s social media accounts in order to maximize coverage, including YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. At the end of the video, we added an endslate with information on how viewers could watch the Movies for Grownups Awards on PBS.
Our video achieved both our goal of increasing viewership of the Movies for Grownups award show, and inspiring our audience with Ralph’s personal journey. On Facebook, the video has received over 59k views and 2,970 engagements with comments from fans like, “I love her she is an amazing actress, Congratulations Sheryl Lee Ralph”, “This is what JOY looks like and sounds like. Congratulations Sister. I’m joyful with you.” and “That is so beautiful. What a beautiful blessing.”
