It comes as no surprise as the holiday season is often referred to as the ‘most wonderful time of the year’ by individuals around the world. Some may enjoy the brisk fireside weather; others may cherish the countless holiday festivities, but for many, there’s nothing quite like a movie night in watching a marathon of ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime’ holiday movies with loved ones.
For the past two holiday seasons, Lifetime has engaged their audience with ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime Bingo Night’ and sweepstakes where viewers had the ability to play Bingo while simultaneously tuning in to a Lifetime movie live airing. Lifetime and A+E Networks looked to expand upon their success while further connecting with their fans, making their audience gamification engagements more robust with greater rewards all while promoting Lifetime’s holiday movies.
Lifetime and A+E Networks set out to spread holiday cheer and achieve an escalated immersive gaming experience for their audience but with a few important goals in mind:
As Lifetime’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime Bingo Night’ campaign received high fan praise and increased live tune-in since its 2019 launch, it was a no brainer to bring Bingo back. With the goal to exceed the previous year’s audience participation and tune-in, Lifetime and A+E Networks strategized with Telescope to spread further holiday cheer in 2021 through additional gamification elements and interactive sweeps. Along came the idea for a prize-driven daily play-along experience called, ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime Holiday Games’. This custom hub comprised of a campaign landing site, along with 3 different interactive experiences – the return of ’It’s a Wonderful Lifetime Bingo Night’, ’30 Days of Merry Giveaways’ advent calendar and tallying fan Leaderboard that encouraged friendly fan competition – in which users earned points and prizes throughout the holidays.
To help get the word out about these activations, special talents were enlisted including main Bingo host, Corbin Bleu, Mario Lopez, Melissa Joan Hart, and more. Each week fans were presented with different hosts to maximize audience reach and campaign awareness.
Entering the immersive hub, users were greeted with the landing page with a welcome video for ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime Bingo Night’ and ’30 Days of Merry Giveaways’ Advent Calendar activations to drive fan excitement. Additionally, a countdown clock kept users in the know when the next Bingo opportunity would be, along with a full list of all upcoming movies (linking out to each movie’s landing pages) to drive awareness to the films and tune-in. Finally, Twitter and Facebook social buttons enabled fans to easily share with others, which both earned fans additional leaderboard points while driving organic social buzz.
To reward Lifetime’s fan base and collect sweeps data capture, users were asked to sign up before navigating through the site. That way fans were always receiving all available points for any participation taken and entered for maximum sweeps opportunities. Fans could participate via:
All throughout the holiday season, Lifetime not only provided fans with endless ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime’ holiday movies that they’ve all been craving, but to top it off successfully further engaged their audience with additional interactive methods during the live broadcasts all while achieving set goals. By tying in a fun sweepstakes to each game, users were incentivized to return daily (30 Days of Merry Giveaways) or each Thursdays (It’s a Wonderful Lifetime Bingo Night) to play along and get rewarded!
All in all, the ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime Holiday Games’ campaign effectively leveraged gamification and sweepstakes interactive elements to drive tune-in, engagement, and an increased fan base.
