GLOW and Hulu's objective for The Mindy Project, the highly popular comedy series making its way from FOX to Hulu as their next original series, was to increase awareness of the premiere airing exclusively on the streaming service.
We needed to earn the trust of longtime fans, retain them as advocates, encourage them to continue to follow the show, and that Mindy Lahiri had a new home but was their same familiar and favorite woman. Additionally, we needed to change their viewing behavior from the familiar linear tune-in model to a weekly streaming roll-out.
With these challenges, our strategy was to develop engaging creative content, and leverage series' talent and the die hard fans, all in an effort to drive social conversation and encourage viewership on Hulu.
Setting the campaign off in August of 2015, teasers and the official trailer launched across our social accounts to announce the series return to an all-new home with Hulu.
The Hulu Periscope and Snapchat were leveraged right out the gate during the red carpet premiere, further connecting the Hulu brand to the series. We activated the Hulu Snapchat during the red carpet as well sharing Snap content across the Twitter Feed. We also elevated the Hulu brand presence across social implementing a new official hashtag, #MindyOnHulu, making a clear connection to fans of the series new home on Hulu.
On Facebook we kept top of mind the importance of video across the platform by elevating the production of each video piece. Videos were treated with an opening slate to capture user's attention within newsfeed and included clear Hulu branding with dynamic kinetic typography. A Q&A series was launched via the Hulu brand Snapchat resulting in custom videos showcasing the fan Snapped question to Hulu paired with the talent response shared on Facebook and Twitter.
For premiere day, we executed the #MindyOnHulu Welcome Party across various platforms including The Mindy Project Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the Hulu Snapchat. The party lit up the social pages with games, party styled snaps, and talent video, all bridging the series together with the streaming service. Across Snapchat we pushed out a snapstory showcasing snaps taken from the POV of a party-goer hanging with the characters, played Snapchat optimized party games, and included CTAs for fans to snap photos back to the account to be re-snapped back to our official handle. The games crossed over to Twitter via a playful use of animated GIFs and custom cut talent shout-outs and continued on Facebook with additional talent shout-outs.
The Mindy Project cast was invited to take part in the 2015 Paley Festival. On Twitter, red carpet coverage videos were captured and shared live to give the cast a personal presence on the account. The coverage was a hit, even capturing the attention of series guest star Laverne Cox. Plus, we made custom Twitter static creative showcasing the key art of Mindy flying to her new home on Hulu in an engaging way utilizing built in Twitter animation when tapping + swiping the static image.
Celebrating Halloween, #LeosHalloween called on users to share their baby costume recommendations for Mindy's new baby boy on social using the hashtag. The activation boosted mentions across Twitter.
Community management efforts were increased making the platform the ideal home for a continued conversation between the official series account and fans. The hashtag #MindyOnHulu proved to be a huge driver for chatter and a perfect means to connect the brand with Mindy.
Overall we successfully tapped into the series' fanbase and developed platform specific custom content that resonated with viewers boosting the social conversation and awareness of the series on Hulu. A truly successful campaign securing huge subscription growth week to week for the streaming service via social marketing efforts alone.
Year over year (from FOX to Hulu), The Mindy Project saw at least double digit growth in Fans across all 3 social media platforms.
Facebook:
14% growth in page Likes
64% increase of Facebook content that was shared
More engagement + shares year over year
Instagram:
100% increased actions
17% increase in followers
Twitter:
19% increase in followers
Engagement increased 31%
Snapchat:
Views: 85,600+
