For RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7, a primary objective was to take an execution we’ve done numerous times and completely re-invent what that looks like. Prior to this campaign, our Meet the Queens were short individual vignettes introducing the new queens to audiences worldwide. All Stars 7 was a special season featuring 8 winners who had already been “introduced,” so our goal became to feature these familiar and beloved faces in a different, elevated way. Instead of past practices, we would aim to create a longer composite video and deliver it on our season reveal livestream to maximize views and create the most impact with a singular piece of content. We wanted this season to feel different, special and unique and never before had we introduced a cast quite like this.
The production behind a Meet the Queens/Promo shoot for a new season is always one of the most important and challenging shoots of the year. There is a standard of excellence we strive for plus an expectation to deliver bigger, better and different content than what our audiences have seen before; a cast of all WINNERS was no exception. Working alongside our design team to create a diamond/crystal palette, we knew the queens themselves would be the stars of the images we planned to capture. With this in mind, we created a minimal set with silver trusses and a black reflective floor to really again showcase just the queens in their showstopping couture. Backstage, we captured casual and fun interviews with the queens as they got ready to show the sisterhood among this cast and also the versatility of their talent and personalities. We had the queens reflect on their journeys and comment on their respect of each other, which we then planned to intercut with behind-the-scenes footage of the beauty broll we were capturing on the stage. We believed this unique structure and combination of compelling content would make this Meet the Queens feel like something new.
With over 2.2 million views and over 17 million minutes watched on YouTube alone, the All Stars 7 Meet the Queens execution was a certified success. The livestream alone received 1 million views, and reached #3 on the YouTube Trending. On Twitter, #AllStars7 trended at #2 worldwide, with 58.6K concurrent people tuning into the RPDR Twitter Spaces. This cast announcement was truly for the fans, and captivated them on every platform. The simplified and streamlined creative changes coupled with a release strategy that maximized audience attention, helped lead to the most successful All Star Meet the Queens to date. Fan sentiment was overwhelmingly positive, with many commenting on how elevated everything looked from the queen’s costumes to the actual production quality of the video. Additionally, audiences appreciated how different and refreshing the rollout felt, helping to accomplish a key objective we set out from the project’s conception. All in all, this was one of the most successful undertakings from RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2022.
