Escapist Ploy

By Brady, Andrew

The second series of Prison Break offered the chance for a highly interactive online campaign.

The first series of US show Prison Break went live for Five last year, attracting around 1.8 million viewers on average. With the second season set to run in January 2007, the broadcaster wanted to drive up viewing figures even more – keeping hold of those hooked by the first series while gaining even more of its target market.

Above-the-line projects such as outdoor work and on-air support had already been lined up, but when VCCP – which had previously worked with Five only on outdoor and press campaigns – came up with an idea for an online manhunt, the seeds for what turned out to be the highly successful locate the 8′ campaign were sown.

“We were appointed by Five in May 2006 and have since done high- profile campaigns for its ‘crown jewels’ including Milkshake, Big Love, Make me a Supermodel, Grey’s Anatomy. and most recently House and Shark,” explains VCCP account handler Nicola Davies. “We also did the launch work for Five’s two new digital channels, Five US and Five Life, but Prison Break was the first big campaign VCCP Digital has done for Five.”

Creative director Steve Vranakis continues: “Prison Breakwas going into series two and. quite simply, we had an original idea: in the second run. the prisoners from the first season are on the run from prison, therefore the proposition for the show was the excitement of the manhunt. So, we went to Dallas last year and shot the cast from which we created the posters for the outdoor work. We then sat down and realised how well this could work online. Five already has a roster of digital agencies but our proposition of a digital manhunt convinced them to go for it.”

Steve Bonner, interactive producer at Five, was clear on what he wanted the campaign to achieve for him. “Essentially the idea was to drive viewing figures, particularly among 18-34year-old ABC 1 males that had engaged with series one but had not made an appointment to view series two,” he explains. “Also, for those that hadn’t seen the first series, the idea was to let them know that you didn’t need to have done to follow the second Prison Break outing. The online work was designed to provide a catch-up.”

Strategy

Last December, Five launched its online hub for Prison Break. via a microsite, with its initial primary function of providing somewhere viewers could catch up on series one. The site included exclusive clips from those shows, and a Five rerun of the first season was also used to drive viewers back online. This year, the digital work with VCCP kicked off. with the Locate the 8 four-week manhunt promotion starting on 15 January.

Consumers had to track down eight prison numbers from the escapees: two prisoners were released each week, the first of which ‘broke out’ just ahead of the series in January and then through the start of the series to keep viewers engaged. After the TV show was broadcast, the audience was prompted to go online and Locate the 8 and each week the Prison Break database was emailed to alert them to that week’s new search. Once found, the prisoners’ numbers then had to be brought back and entered into the site.

Each week goodie bags containing items such as Prison Break DVDs and merchandise were given away and entrants had to gather all eight numbers in order to enter the grand prize draw, which offered a five- day trip for two to Alcatraz Island, all expenses paid. Once consumers had entered all eight codes, they had to complete a code- breaker quiz to get into a special room on the site and then compete for the big prize.

Of course, the prisoners were not hidden just anywhere on the web. The emphasis was on social media sites, so partners for the campaign included MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. The Prison Break microsite contained hints as to which web spaces the prisoners might be hiding in and, as well as it being the centre for the main competition, the site contained exclusive footage from series one, vital for engaging or re-engaging viewers, according to Bonner.

A different format was used for each week. So, for example, on YouTube, a seemingly genuine CCTV clip had been posted, within which that prisoner and his code could be identified. On MySpace. Prison Break didn’t have its own specific corporate page – the clues led consumers to the page of an invented individual who owned a tattoo parlour and surfers then had to read his blogs to discover that the prisoner was one of his friends.

The clues became progressively more difficult as the weeks went by, designed to keep punters hooked.

Because the digital campaign had not originally been part of the marketing plan, lead times for the push were short – three weeks – and the budget was small. However, Vranakis is at pains to stress that this was down to the late creative interjection of VCCP Digital.

As this was a first for Five and VCCP in a digital environment, there was also an element of trial and error. Sites such as Google Earth were originally part of the online marketing plan, but in the end proved to be beyond budget. Similarly, while the success of second Life made it a very desirable option for Locate the 8. after initial exploratory discussions, it was deemed too early in the evolution of the virtual site as this promotion went live.

Even with the big-name sites that were used, Five and VCCP were always going to have work hard. Vranakis says: “People like MySpace don’t like pureplay commercial messages, so you have to create something based on a value exchange that re wards the user. So we had no branding on our MySpace page, just our tattoo parlour.”

Elsewhere, Five’s Bonner adds that creating a high-end digital project at short notice meant a fair share of late nights for all concerned. “It was sophisticated technologically so we all had to work very hard, but we managed to pull everything together ahead of deadline.”

Overall, viewing figures for the show increased by a healthy percentage from 1.8m in series one to 2.2m in series two and Vranakis says these figures remained constant across the second run of Prison Break. “One of the most important things is that the promotion kept people engaged throughout the series. That’s the tough part.”

Over 300.000 consumers visited the Prison Break microsite during the manhunt campaign and over half of those who entered the competition found all eight fugitives. According to VCCP’s figures, the average entrant experienced 13 touch-points across all the social media sites.

“Not only did the campaign perform extremely well in terms of the sheer numbers of people that interacted with it. but it also delivered quality engagement with Five and the Prison Break property,” says VCCP’s Davies. “Five’s target audience of sceptical ‘experience seekers’ actively participated and added to it by creating content within the social media spaces we used engaging in dialogue with site content, and even with each other.”

Five’s Bonner is a happy man. “During the promotion visitors to the site increased significantly and it produced very pleasing results in terms of attracting our core target market for the campaign,” he says. “People were extremely excited by the campaign. We were inundated with emails and even had calls to our customer service line about it and the great thing was that the viewers pushed us to make the game more difficult.

“From the outset we planned to make the clues in the first week fairly easy to track down and work out and then make it more difficult after that, but people kept contacting us asking us to make them more complex still. It was great to get that kind of feedback and it meant that it kept rechallenging us.”

Verdict

While the Locate the 8 project went well, VCCP’s Davies is in no doubt that the campaign constituted something of a leap of faith for the channel. “The competition was a brave leap into unfamiliar territory for Five,” she explains. “No one had done a large-scale online manhunt like this before, using multiple second-generation sites. This is one of the few campaigns to successfully utilise second-generation web sites such as MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube in an engaging and genuinely interactive way.”

Vranikis is similarly satisfied, claiming it was a great example of how one medium can bring another to life and amplify it.

The agency folk are bound to big up their work, but their client agrees. Bonner adds that the overall success of the Locate the 8 push has led to a shift towards digital for the broadcaster. “This really did put digital at the heart of the marketing and that is what will continue. It was definitely a big success and everyone at Five is pleased with the results.”

People like MySpace don’t like pureplay commercial messages, so you have to create something based on a value exchange that rewards the user

Steve Vranakis

VCCP

Engaging the second generation

It was great watching the online conversations grow day by day.

Anthony Stamp,

VCCP copywriter

“The rise of social media (or ‘web 2.0′) was arguably the key marketing story of 2006.

A new generation of web sites, including Flickr and You lube, went from nowhere to ubiquity, each with user-generated content as their core reason for existence.

The challenge of communicating brands effectively in this fluid and relatively uncontrolled environment lias been causing much industry debate but few successes.

Locate the 8 was one of the few campaigns to successfully utilise second-generation web sites. We tried to use M\ySpace. Flickr, and You lube in an engaging and honest way. which consumers genuinely wanted to interact with.

It was great watching the online conversations grow day by day. What’s more, engaging with consumers across social media sites rather than conventional brand portals allowed us to get away with more, which made for a much richer user experience.”

YouTube: CCTV-like footage provided

The move from TV audience to interactive community

We saw ashift from simply a television audience to an active, online participative community.

Nicola Davies, VCCP

“What’s great about this campaign is the way Five acknowledged that the way people connect with brands digitally has changed. In today’s ‘conversation era’ it’s more about inclusiveness and talking with consumers: no longer just telling and selling.

There is a new generation of web-sawy brand-aware consumers. It’s time for brands to connect with people in new and imaginative ways.

Consumers are familiar with generating their own content through social media spaces, which are no longer controlled by brands. Once the content is out there, you can’t control what people do. To do so would defeat the whole point of social media – which is all about openness, participation, but. most importantly, honesty. If brands like Five can be associated with these values, their proposition will be dramatically reinforced. And bringing the concept of a manhunt to life is an exciting proposition.

Five took a huge risk, in my opinion, by opening up their brand to consumers not just to view but to interact with, and even create content for. People interacted to a degree even we hadn’t anticipated.

We saw a shift from simply a television audience to an active, online participative community. Not only had we succeeded in engaging the audience, we had facilitated a community of people who actively worked together to solve the clues. Consumers were giving each other hints and tips in social spaces such as Flickr in order to help each other hunt down the fugitives, which worked fantastically for them and the campaign as a whole.”

In the frame: Five’s Prison Break competition site acted as a hub for the campaign

Copyright Haymarket Business Publications Ltd. May 2007

(c) 2007 Revolution. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.