Objective

The Voyage is a documentary series produced by the Minnesota Vikings, utilizing behind-the-scenes access to tell the story of each season.

Provide a behind-the-scenes look at a year of firsts for the 2022 Minnesota Vikings. A first-time General Manger, a first-time Head Coach, and mix of veteran players and new additions came together for one of the most successful seasons in the team’s storied history.

Strategy

With documentary-style content, it’s difficult to give a consistent outline from one episode to the next. Elements included in the series are exclusive interviews with a new player each week, mic’d up moments unseen in our regular season pieces, off-the-field storylines that provide a deeper connections with the players and their lives, all guided by the larger story of the season.

The Voyage was formerly an all-access series posted every other week during the season. This presented us with a few challenges – lack of intriguing storylines, use of confidential access-based content, and burnout.

In 2023, we took a new approach to the existing content series. We moved it to following the season, which opened up more opportunities than we’d imagined. Not only did we see great engagement with our four long-form episodes on multiple platforms, we were able engage with our Season Ticket Members in more intimate ways. We hosted them for an in-person premiere experience at the team facility, treated them to some partner perks, and provided an advanced look at the episode each week. In addition, it also turned out to be one of the most successful seasons in team history, with one miraculous finish after another. This shift in our approach, combined with on-field success and access, turned out to be the perfect combination for this revamped content series.    

Results

• Most viewed episode this season was episode one with currently 65K views

• Gained 448 subscribers from episode one alone

• Long format on YouTube allows ads to be placed at natural segues in the

  video

• Over 55% of viewers were NOT subscribers of our YouTube channel. We

  tapped into a larger audience.

• Average view duration for each episode was over 33% (around the 15:00

  minute mark).

• YouTube premieres were perfect for this series. Live chat with fans during

  premiere.

• Easy to created an unlisted link for STM.

• Averaged 43k views per episode across the four episodes on YouTube, which was our targeted platform
• Integrated approach across multiple media platforms (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, local television, and email marketing)

Media