The objective of The Prancing Elites Project season 1 marketing campaign was to raise awareness of the new series among W18-34 and drive tune-in to the series premiere. The goals of the campaign were to introduce Oxygen's latest reality docu-series to the network's core female millennial audience, generate buzz and excitement leading up to premiere, and establish an emotional connection with viewers who would rally behind our lovable underdog characters.
The Prancing Elites are a group of black, gay and gender-non-conforming dancers from Mobile, Alabama who march to the beat of their own drum – they are sassy, bold, and hilarious, but they also deal with the relatable struggle of not always feeling accepted. We wanted to tell their authentic story, and generate awareness of the show by establishing larger than life presence in key millennial environments and activating our target audience to become brand advocates, arming them with the tools to drive social conversation around the show.
Our marketing strategy was to tap into millennial trends and cultural zeitgeist, with three key insights in mind: 1) that our target is constantly connected & sharing with their social networks, 2) they are interested in social issues and inspiring change, and 3) as TV fans, they love to be entertained with drama and laugh out loud moments.
For our media buy, we aligned with relevant content, having presence in LGBTQ environments on TV and online like LOGO and Here Media, and we entered the conversation on social, creating content inspired by topical moments such as Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover and Gay Pride Month. We armed our advocates with shareable content, creating inspirational quote images, fun GIFs & videos, and custom brand-integrated articles created by digital publishers such as Elite Daily, Refinery 29, and Bustle. Introductory video content gave audiences insight into each of our cast members, and was supported across all of Oxygen's social platforms with robust paid media. In order to raise awareness on a mass scale among reality TV enthusiasts, we ran a national cable campaign on MTV, VH1, TLC, and Lifetime, as well as the Female & Young Adult clusters on Dish & DirecTV. We aligned with a key TV tentpole event for our target, with a local spot in the MTV Movie Awards, and created custom social content to insert the Prancing Elites into a real-time buzzy conversation. Knowing our cast is so eye-catching and entertaining with their dance moves and sparkly outfits, we employed a targeted video strategy to help sample show content, showing a mix of the humor and the struggles that would be seen throughout the season. We ran paid media across YouTube and Vevo, tapping into music as a key genre as well as like-minded entertainment content, and we owned the largest real estate on YouTube, the desktop masthead, on premiere day for an ultra high-impact takeover.
Leveraging the power and reach of social influencers, we employed two of the top Snapchat creators, Lohanthony and Christine Mi, to take over OxygenTV's Snapchat account leading up to and during premiere. We also partnered with Lohanthony and fellow YouTube influencer Sam Tsui, to film a music video with the Elites that the influencers promoted to their massive social followings. On premiere night, we held Oxygen's first ever Periscope "Kiki" party, featuring the Prancing Elites, in order to engage with Oxygen fans on this emerging platform, and generate excitement for the premiere. The Periscope stream was also promoted across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in order to drive traffic.
Season 1 of The Prancing Elites Project was the highest rated series premiere since the network's rebrand in October 2014. The premiere episode had the highest amount of live viewing for the season, along with sizable time-shifted viewing, indicating strong interest in the show. The series resonated amongst a diverse millennial audience, with a median age of 34. The premiere garnered 27.5% new viewers, which is well above Oxygen series launch norms.
On social, the response was overwhelmingly positive! The series premiere was the #3 most social reality program on cable in Prime with 9.7K tweets, according to Nielsen Social Guide, which was Oxygen's biggest social premiere since August 2014, and our biggest social premiere of 2015. The premiere night Periscope "Kiki" party featuring the Elites received over 7,000 hearts throughout the night. Following the east coast premiere episode, #PrancingElites trended in the US at No.3 for approximately 20 minutes.