GLOW and HBO wanted to build anticipation and awareness surrounding the Season 4 premiere of HBO's award-winning, critically-acclaimed comedy series Veep on April 12, 2015. More specifically, goals included developing a strategy that celebrated Selina Meyer's newfound presidency, excited current fans and turned them into even bigger advocates for the show (therefore helping to spread the word) and tapped into the greater zeitgeist (therefore appealing to a broader audience and attracting new fans).
To achieve the above, we launched "Veep Week", a week-long activation complete with stunts and content that engaged the Veep community and got people talking.
We kicked it off with a #PrivateVeepleChat, a first-of-its-kind expanded Twitter private DM group chat (Twitter increased their max. participants from 20 to 30 specifically for this) to engage/reward superfans. We had the Veep cast answer their questions, sharing photos of themselves and an exclusive clip to enrich the experience.
To further reward existing fans, while attracting new ones, we embarked on two new partnerships.
We became one of the first brands to partner with popular voice-over app Dubsmash to drive home the biting, raunchy humor Veep fans know and love. We selected 20+ soundbites and worked with Dubsmash to create a special Veep category (promoted in their #1 landing page spot). We increased awareness by having Veep talent create their own Dubsmash videos and share via social.
We also partnered with the popular GIF-messaging app Popkey to elevate Veep's physical humor. We provided Popkey with 30+ "reaction gifs" from seasons past. We worked with them to create a special Veep category with prominent dashboard placement the week leading to and following premiere. We engaged talent to help promote this and added new gifs throughout Season 4.
To get Veep fans excited about Season 4, and tap into the greater zeitgeist, HBO developed a video series titled "The Great Veep Debate" and released the videos via Facebook and Twitter. Inspired by "Would You Rather…", the pieces featured the Veep cast responding to various scenarios centered around characters from the show (such as "Who would you rather date your daughter…").
To engage influencers, we created communications for a VIP mailing of personalized embroidered Veep pillows, complete with social messaging for sharing.
To allow fans to "get to know their president" and help drive tune-in, we parodied The White House's #AskTheWH campaign with our #AskSelina Q&A the Friday leading into premiere weekend. We responded to fans in real time with canned Selina "responses" leveraging Twitter's then-new video feature, as well as "VETO" and "PARDON" cards for questions Selina wouldn't be keen to answer. (This was so popular that we ended up hosting again the Friday leading to the season finale.)
To create additional buzz surrounding premiere night itself, we had members of the cast live-tweet the east coast airing using #VeepPremiere and promoted with a special video piece, along with custom live-tweeting cards for talent to tweet out.
To keep conversation going in-season, we continued to have talent tweet and created episode-related polls (polls since being added as a feature on Twitter), sharing post-air and encouraging fans to share their answers. We then shared results before the next episode.
Toward the end of the season, we extended Selina's in-story campaign by sending influencers "Meyer for President" campaign swag and encouraging them to show their allegiance on Twitter. We also created digital content for fans to share their support, swagging them along the way.
These combined efforts helped the new season of Veep achieve the desired level of engagement and attention. The volume of conversation for the Season 4 premiere was up an impressive 36% from the Season 3 premiere. The campaign itself received press coverage in AdWeek's "Lost Remote" blog and we had real-life politicians interacting with the campaign, including then Speaker of the House, John Boehner (who shared his personalized pillow).
The #PrivateVeepleChat was filled to capacity prior to start, with those confirmed eager to participate and others clamoring for a chance to get in. Fans were incredibly receptive to the Q&A and went as far as to say the Veep cast Q&A was a great use of the tool. They were also eager to take screen shots the cast's hilarious responses and share them on their own social profiles. At the end of the Q&A, fans shared their exclusive clip and images from their public-facing Twitter profiles.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the official Veep Twitter handle drove mentions of #AskSelina, which caused substantial spikes in buzz before premiere and at the finale. Mentions for #AskSelina were 18% of the total tweets on the day of the premiere and 43% on the day of the finale giving us a total of 1,042 #AskSelina tweets during Season 4.
