Paramount Network was created in 2018 as a central part of Viacom's reorganization. With Yellowstone premiering as the first scripted drama series, it faced the dual challenge of drawing viewers from the shrinking cable universe and being on a network with low awareness. The campaign sought to drive tune-in for the Yellowstone premiere and elevate Paramount Network's brand as a destination for scripted entertainment.
| Our strategy revolved around placing the A-List talent and the premium production quality of the show in the fore of all executions to attract prestige television viewers. To message the premium nature of the show we bolstered our approach with first to market digital partnerships and an efficient social media campaign to compliment our high impact linear spots, all of which combined to drive strong Nielsen ratings. Our campaign began with a promoted trailer push in April that introduced the world to Yellowstone. Combined with a push in the NFL Draft on FOX & ESPN, the trailer was supported on YouTube & all social platforms. The push was a success, with the trailer currently sitting at over 5 million views on YouTube. In the weeks leading to premiere we entered into a first of its kind partnership with National Geographic, the #1 brand on Instagram. Photographer David Guttenfelder went on set to Montana to capture stunning landscapes from the series. The photography was distributed across Nat Geo's Instagram and on its Instagram story the day of premiere. In addition, the photos were used in video content featured on Nat Geo's Facebook and O&O site. The Instagram partnership delivered 24.5MM impressions alone with the whole program delivering 138% of planned impressions. Vanity Fair produced a custom "Behind the Screen" video featuring Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly and Kevin Costner to help highlight the A-list talent from the series and attract fans. The content was a hit delivering over 155% of the planned views with 338k with support on Instagram and Facebook that drove users to the video. The pre-premiere YouTube campaign featured Instream, Bumper and Discovery ads collectively driving 57M Impressions and over 20M views. The Facebook campaign began June 6th and ran through the finale featuring 10 pieces of creative and generated over 30 million video views. Instagram and Twitter mimicked the Facebook campaign's approach and drove over 8 million and 3 million views respectively. |
The campaign was a tremendous success leading Yellowstone to become the most watched new cable drama of 2018 to date. Specifically, the premiere garnered 5.3 million P2+ viewers in the Live +7 window while the finale achieved a whopping 5.5 million P2+ viewers in the Live +7 window. This has made Yellowstone the 2nd most watched drama of 2018 on ad-supported cable behind on The Walking Dead. Continuity on social through YouTube and social were crucial in driving efficient reach to keep viewers interested. Yellowstone was also the #1 social freshman cable drama series on Facebook in Summer 2018.
