Home Brew partnered with HBO Max to deliver a premium and fan-servicing social media campaign to promote the 3rd season of DC’s Titans. With the show moving from the DC Universe streaming service to its new home on HBO Max, this campaign aimed to deliver an elevated yet insider experience to existing fans while also attracting new fans. The campaign was designed to emphasize the increased production value of the show and build a deep connection with the fanbase through community management. Home Brew focused on fan-service content and building relationships with the community to achieve the campaign goal of making Titans one of HBO Max’s most-watched and most talked-about series of 2021.
Titans tells the story of Dick Grayson, formerly Robin raised by Batman, and how he and other uniquely powered and passionate individuals come together to form a superhero team named the Titans. Titans Season 3 was a unique campaign due to a number of factors that heavily influenced the strategy. It was the first DC Universe show to have its season debut on HBO Max, it included a large ensemble cast and it had a passionate international fanbase while initially only being available to US subscribers. Being in-the-know and understanding the fanbase was the most important part of this campaign.
Our primary strategies for Instagram coming into Season 3 of Titans were: fan service and highlighting talent. When it came to fan service, we wanted to make sure fans had a voice and were well represented on our Instagram channel. To do this we sourced quotes from our Instagram comments and Twitter around fan reactions of the latest episodes and posted these to our Stories. We also regularly sourced fan art and cosplayers that used the hashtag #DCTitans and highlighted them daily on Stories.
At New York and San Diego Comic Con, we executed surprise and delight activations with fans. Without an official Titans presence, we coordinated with HBO Max to provide social coverage of each of the Cons, highlighting cosplayers and fans on Instagram Stories while surprising them with classic comic issues of their favorite DC characters.
Being that this was the 3rd season (and first on HBO Max) this cast already had a ton of chemistry and excitement to help promote the series on their social media networks. To channel this excitement, we produced a series of takeovers on the Titans official Instagram account that gave fans an unprecedented amount of transparency and interaction with the cast members. In total, we executed a total of 6 takeovers throughout the season. There were 2 Q&As, 3 Instagram Live AMAs and an Instagram Live Watch Party with the series’ showrunner and 3 of the cast members. We built relationships with talent to help us execute high value takeovers of the Titans Instagram channels which resulted in thousands of viewers and added value to the channel.
It was also important for us to highlight talent posts on the official Titans Instagram Stories. We created a branded background to brand regular Story shares of talent videos and photos to feel like a fully cohesive campaign when sharing content from other sources. It was also important for us to highlight talent posts on the official Titans Instagram Stories. We created a branded background to brand regular Story shares of talent videos and photos to feel like a fully cohesive campaign when sharing content from other sources.
By building a deep connection with the fanbase through community management and talent involvement, the Titans social accounts saw an impressive 32% page growth, acquiring 236k new fans. The accounts saw 10.7M total engagements and 338M total impressions over the course of the campaign. Our action- and character-driven social pieces raised the hype level and pushed the storytelling forward for both core and casual fans, helping us accomplish our goal of building strong relationships with the community and growing the audience. As a result of our campaign, Titans became one of HBO Max’s most-watched and most talked-about series of 2021.
