how to empower your digital "superfans" to drive offline engagement

RISE OF THE SUPERFANSGrowing TV Audience By Empowering Digital Communities

WE’RE PUTTING SUPERFANS ON TV.

TODAY’S PLAYLIST

• The Partnership and

Our Challenge

• The Superfan Strategy

• Handing Over (Gulp!)• Handing Over (Gulp!)

The Keys

• Results and Next Steps

• Q&A

The PARTNERSHIP.

How Superstation WGNA and Story Worldwide came together.

the DIGITAL AGENCY

with an EDITORIAL

DEPARTMENT.

we create

CONTENTCONTENTpeople want

to SHARE.

the SUPERFAN STRATEGY.

How to involve brand fans, create engaging content with them,

and thereby arm them to become powerful advocates.

FOR FANS, FAME is the ULTIMATE CURRENCY.

INFLUENCER TARGETING

SUPER FANS create the good stuff

CASUAL FANS

We proposed a three stage effort to draw the crowds.

CASUAL FANSspread the news

POTENTIAL FANSkick back and enjoy

25 SuperFans with 1000 followers, who themselves each

have 130 friends = potential audience of 3.25 million.

Step 1: Kick off

SUPERFAN

RELATIONSHIPS

Step 2: Create

ORIGINAL,

SHAREABLE

CONTENT

Step 3: Launch and

support casual fan

SOCIAL HUBS

Step 4: Ignite and

sustain multiple

MEANINGFUL

CONVERSATIONS

WHAT WE LEARNED RIGHT AWAY

• Superfans don’t want to work for an

advertiser…they want to play with other

creative people. Editorial outreach works.

• Casual fans love to be heard and responded to, • Casual fans love to be heard and responded to,

and they love and finding one another. They

can be a surprisingly cohesive unit.

• In the context of a fan hub, fans appreciate

tune-in information as real user service, not

sponsor messaging to be suffered.

HANDING OVER the KEYS.

How putting this theory into action quickly led us to new and

exciting ways to involve the fans with the shows they love.

SHOW BY SHOW, WE’RE ESTABLISHING DIGITAL CONVERSATIONS.

ON-AIR PROVIDES TUNE-IN INFO, AND DRIVES TO DIGITAL.

ONLINE, FAN-BASED FILMS ARE SHAREABLE CONVERSATION STARTERS.

HIMYM FANS WHO SENT IN

MOTHER’S DAY TWEETS

COULD TUNE IN TO SEE IF

THEIRS MADE IT ON-AIR.

THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA,

FANS ARE INVITED TO

DECIDE THE LINEUP OF

SHOW MARATHONS.

GROWTH POTENTIAL

In six months, we’ve gathered 300,000 fans of one show, and have a clear

understanding of the cost to get there…and to grow to 500k, 1m, and beyond.

EXPANDABILITY

We’ve begun the effort with How I Met Your Mother and 30 Rock; other key

shows to follow. We will deploy different content strategies for each.

THE WGNA DIGITAL COMMUNITY SO FAR

shows to follow. We will deploy different content strategies for each.

ENGAGEMENT

Through constant conversation monitoring and real-time responding, we’ve

created real engagement and a motivated, self-reinforcing community.

PRODUCTIVITY

The size of the test case makes it hard to see just how much we’re moving the

needle on audience tune-in. But anecdotal evidence is gathering…

RESULTS and NEXT STEPS.

How it’s working so far…and where we’re taking the program in

2012 and beyond.

ANECDOTALLY, we

seem to be DRIVING

OFFLINE

BEHAVIOR

“Some of our best

Mother numbers ever—Mother numbers ever—

Sunday reached its highest

A18-34 and A18-49 telecasts

to date!”

—Lisa Gilbert,

audience monitor

at WGNA

SCALING THE EFFORT

Year 1 was about gathering each target show’s casual fans into a

responsive, growing community of potential behavior drivers.

Year 2 is about arming

that casual fan base

to influence their to influence their

friends and

followers…and

multiply our

potential viewers a

hundredfold.

AND SPONSORS CAN JOIN THE PARTY!

Brands can partake in meaningful

conversation with an active and

engaged target audience

Branding “organically” in a social

context allows for enhanced

engagement & instant feedbackengagement & instant feedback

HOW YOU CAN JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Programs on WGN America offer partners many “meaningful

conversation” opportunities by aligning existing in-program

product placement with relevant social marketing themes

END OF STORY

Josh Richman

Vice President, Marketing,

WGN America

SMILE IF YOU LIKED IT!

WGN America

JoRichman@tribune.com

Keith Blanchard

Group Creative Director,

Story Worldwide

Keith.Blanchard@storyworldwide.com