A couple of years ago, A&E approached us with a new kind of challenge: help with promoting their first scripted show, BATES MOTEL. After an intensely collaborative process, we ended up with a uniquely cohesive campaign.
The Launch Spot looked like the Launch Poster. The Teaser Spots looked like the Teaser Posters. The logo on air was a variation of the one used out of house. We created the title sequence. Everything was wrapped around the visual identity of DUSK and NEON. And the idea of providing little windows into the universe of the show, without spelling everything out, while highlighting the infamous relationship between mother and son.
We have since used that same holistic approach on a number of campaigns, winning an EMMY® award for Outstanding Promotional Announcement for CNN’s THE SEVENTIES.
Interestingly, most other campaign opportunities we’ve come across have been very different from this integrated approach that feels so natural and intuitive to us. More often than not, we’ve encountered internal departments working in isolation, resulting in a tried and true piece-meal approach that has led to less-than-stellar processes and work.
To us, television shows are BRANDS and need to be built that way. There is simply too much content to compete with, to not consider every application with thoughtfulness and care. A great campaign is the perfect balance of CONSISTENCY and COHESIVENESS.
The logo needs to be CONSISTENT. For us, this should be non-negotiable. Too often still, we see a logotype in the title sequence that’s different from the one being used in promotion. Depending on contractual issues, the relationship between network and show runner and between internal departments, this is sometimes easier said than done. But the line between what we have traditionally considered ‘branding’ and ‘marketing’ is being blurred; gone are the days when ‘branding’ wrapped a product and ‘marketing’ pushed it out the door. Why can’t a great title sequence be used as way to invite an audience to check out a new show? So a piece of ‘branding’ becomes a piece of ‘marketing’. And to confuse viewers with logo inconsistency isn’t just, well, confusing, it can be downright deadly if the number 1 goal is recognition and attribution.
In most cases, a campaign has a visual identity and campaign platform (Hook) that UNIFIES ALL EXECUTIONS.
When too many ideas are being crammed into a single image, it can dilute the campaign and make it confusing and therefore unmemorable. This requires decision making and, above all, communication between all parties involved. Too often, we’ve seen marketing departments make decisions in a vacuum, just to see presents or show runners disagree when being looped in the night before the shoot.
CONSISTENCY can become one-note and repetitive when the campaign consists of one piece of key artor one spot. Today, there are so many platforms and therefore opportunities for your audience to see a promotional piece, seeing the same story over and over again can be a missed opportunity to engage different types of audiences. The best content is complex and layered. And a campaign isn’t just about pushing product anymore. For us, any piece of communication for a brand is a little window into the universe of a particular show; it tells a story. And we have the opportunity to open multiple windows to that universe, weaving together a more complex, yet COHESIVE narrative than we might have seen in the past.
At the risk of sounding like a software salesman, it is important to realize that we are in the CUSTOM SOLUTIONS business; every campaign and situation is unique and even universal challenges require custom solutions. Therefore, the worst thing for us to do is to carve the above in stone, seal and polish it.
Philosophies are mental guidelines. But at the end of the day, they are nothing more than a point of view. And, in my opinion, points of view exist to be evolved, not just for every project, but every day.