2018 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

To create a true immersive realization of the show and allow members of the public, media and influencers to experience it, literally. We rented a villa, created our the UAE’s own version of the Channel Zero: No-End House. and posted it on dubizzle (the region's largest classified website) at an incredibly low rent price attracting genuine visitors.

Execution

We created the UAE’s own version of the No-End House. We rented a villa, set up the rooms with fake walls, spring-loaded doors, eerie props and mirrors that came alive. Each room was more frightening than the last. We then hid multiple cameras, and invited prospective tenants to visit and look around. From this, we created an edit of the footage and shared on SYFY ME’s social channels, supported by paid and leveraged through partnerships. In parallel, we invited top influencers and media (those who understood digitally-led content and could drive engagement) to the villa under the pretense of an exclusive screening. Upon arrival, instead of heading straight to the viewing room, they were invited explore the villa. We then created an edit of the original prank video and incorporated the best scares from each of the media’s experiences. Each journalist and influencer then received their personalised videos.

We left a lasting impression and most importantly, created rich content that delivered reach and impact, with velocity: • The best preforming piece of content for Syfy, EVER (their average engagement is 10,000 per video content) • In just under three days, the Facebook post had achieved 1 million views, 1,800k comments, 18,000 likes and 3,700 shares. • 103,800 views on YouTube. • 955,000 Twitter impressions, 288,000 views and 16,000 engagements. The video trended at No. 1 position in the region for 24 hours. • A total reach of4.3 million individuals. • $55,000 worth of press clippings • Most importantly we helped achieve viewer figures that exceeded all expectations.

The Situation

There are hundreds of TV shows launched every year in the region. We needed to ignite excitement for the Middle East launch of SYFY’s new horror show Channel Zero: No-End House, a relatively unknown series, and create cut-through on a small budget and very little time. We could have taken the traditional route, as briefed by the client, and simply written a release or hosted an event. Instead we came up with an experience that people would want to talk about, write about and share. We devised a digitally led campaign that created rich content that delivered reach and impact.

The Strategy

We wanted to leave a lasting impression and most importantly, create rich content that was social by design and would deliver reach and impact, with velocity – something that people would talk about, write about and share. We also didn’t want to just have the standard media event and show premiere – we wanted to give media a unique and unforgettable experience... We knew that video consumption is huge in in the MENA region – it is ranks second in the world by number of daily YouTube Videos, with more than 2 hours of videos uploaded every minute. Video content was therefore KEY and what gives richer content than the power of a live experience?! The resulting hero video was then seeded across multiple channels, SYFY's own as well as via select digital content savvy media who could drive engagement, three days before the show's launch to generate excitement.