USA Digital has been at the forefront of entertainment websites for several years, but 2014 was a breakout success by all measures. With a full slate of 8 new original series, 4 returning originals, and 2 beloved series finales, USANetwork.com had a very busy and very successful 2014. USA Digital has a two-fold mandate—to increase viewership and fandom of our shows, as well as driving as much traffic and time spent on usanetwork.com as possible. In 2014 USA Digital innovated and improved on existing strategies and created new products to do just that with great success. USA Digital created a new type of Catch Up experience, pioneered a new type of programming and digital/social media strategy, pushed the envelope of cultural conversations, and created huge pre-premiere buzz for a new tentpole series, months before its on-air premiere. And this innovation and creativity led to big results-- 2014 saw a 25% increase in visits and a 3% lift in Uniques from 2012, and a 19% increase in Video Streams from 2013. More information on the individual executions and performance is listed below.
Created a New Type of Catch Up Experience – To celebrate the anticipated return of Graceland and to eventize the epic conclusion of the six season USA veteran series White Collar, USANetwork.com created two destination catch up hubs with free full episode streaming.
The Graceland Catch Up Headquarters offered a variety of ways for fans to prepare for the Season 2 premiere based on the question "how much time do you want to spend catching up?" Users could choose from binging all of Season 1, episodic photo galleries, or a 3-minute snackable video recap. Video streams for Graceland were up 208% from the prior season, and premiere day saw the HQ as the #1 section of the Graceland site, keeping viewers on the site for an impressive +356% longer, compared to Season 1.
Similarly, the White Collar Farewell hub served to commemorate five exceptional seasons and prepare fans for "The Last Con" by streaming all episodes of Season 5 for free, challenging fans to prove their fandom with trivia, and the opportunity to say goodbye to White Collar by creating an individualized and socially shareable farewell meme. The Farewell Hub ranked as the #1 feature of the White Collar site and earned and impressive 656K page views and 387K video streams (+20% from the previous season).
Pioneered a new programming and social strategy: Slumber Party Marathons-- USA Network sought to drive mass awareness for the series finale of Psych by engaging with loyal fans in thanks for their support of 8 successful seasons by making the finale an interactive event. The "Psych All-Night" marathon engaged fans and cast via a live Twitter chat and encouraged fans to submit Farewell Instagram Videos and Tweets to be featured on-air. The event included the "Ultimate Psych-Off," a live competition via a second-screen experience. During the live "Psych After Pshow," USA held an interactive awards ceremony, "The Golden Pineapples," revealing winners on Twitter and Facebook.
USA achieved its goals driving mass awareness: more than 17k fans participated, mentioning the #PsychAllNight hashtag more than 57k times, which propelled 21 trending topics and garnered 110MM+ impressions. For the series finale and "Psych After-Pshow," the event live-tweeting led to another 17 trending topics, as over 41k Psych-O's mentioned #psychOUT over 70k times, resulting in 63.6MM impressions.
Pushing the Envelope of Cultural Conversations – USA Network's buzziest new series Satisfaction sought to ask America, "What do you do when having it all is not enough?" In a highly-stylized and engaging experience that was part personality test, part game, and part shareable social content, users responded to a series of custom-written questions and challenges within the Satisfaction Digital Hub to determine their 'Satisfaction Index.' Additionally, USANetwork.com offered users an anonymous confession wall that allowed users to join the conversation around the themes of Satisfaction.
Finally, USA partnered with Vice to create an original web series that investigated the modern definitions of love, happiness and satisfaction. Interweaving the personal, true stories of young couples alongside expert interviews, the docu-series explored the modern definition of happiness, and elevated these themes into the cultural zeitgeist, paving the way for the premiere season of Satisfaction.
Early Awareness / Social Success – In an effort to drive awareness and early viewership intent for USA Network's new event series, DIG, USA produced a SnapChat scavenger hunt during San Diego Comic-Con in late July. SnapChat was specifically chosen for this activation because the organic use of the platform lent itself to a bit of mystery. To foster on-the-ground engagement, USA began by seeding the DIG symbol across San Diego. Promotion of the scavenger hunt was supported across DIG and USA social channels and promoted by Snapchat influencer Jerome Jarre through a dedicated Story.
Over the 2 days, the Dig Snapchat handle accumulated over 16,400 followers, with 12.2k unique views on the 60 second story detailing the scavenger hunt with a 93% completion rate. Additionally, there were a total of 1.1 million unique views on Jerome Jarre's 19 Snap Story with an 88% completion rate.
In addition to the Snap Chat activation, USA Digital created a Prequel story and published that story in 12 installments on WattPad. This prequel, telling the backstory of one of the main characters, was written by one of the show's writers to ensure the quality of the story. The Dig Prequel garnered 924,573 reads with 738,880 unique readers—huge numbers for a brand new show.
Through these two activations, Dig awareness is pacing very highly in advance of its March 5th 2015 premiere.
