Tonight one of the most popular and awarded TV shows of the last decade, namely Grey’s Anatomy, will return to the screen with the premiere of its 11^th season. The medical drama went on air for the first time in 2005 and since that day its fan base has been unrelentingly growing. How can TV series keep having success and survive through the years? If you are a passionate watcher, the answer will be displaying clearly in your mind: they create ADDICTION. But it is not only thanks to fascinating and surprising plots that a show manages to grip its fans, though. Moreover, nowadays the competition in the TV industry is continuously increasing, with content supply becoming everyday wider and more customized, thus retaining a good audience through time is more and more hard for a TV show. Producers cannot just rely on the fan’s interest in the complicated love stories of the main characters, so a key role is played by the capability of creating a constant fan base engagement. The flame of people’s interest should be continuously stoked up, especially during the long periods of waiting for the next season to come. The Seattle Grace surgeons’ show certainly succeeded in doing it. How? Easy, heavily leveraging on the web marketing of course.

Therefore, which better example than Grey’s Anatomy to illustrate all the requirements that a TV series needs to meet in order to implement a successful digital marketing campaign? These are the main strengths of its e-marketing promotion:

1)      Develop an interactive Facebook page
Grey’s Anatomy Facebook page (http://https://www.facebook.com/GreysAnatomy?fref=ts), with more than 22.550.000 likes to this day, is regularly updated with posts, news and pictures. They try to keep the fan base interactive posting show-related questions and asking users to express their opinions regarding characters or actors.

 

2)      Create buzz through sneak peeks and leaks

Sometimes the information comes from official channels, sometimes from unofficial ones. What does really matter is the capability to reveal something, but without exceeding: it’s important to find the proper balance in order to turn on a discussion and increase the excitement in the fan base, without saying too much and spoil their curiosity.

3)      Rumors from the producers
The role of the producer, Shonda Rhymes, and her team has always been vital for Grey’s Anatomy. She often uses Twitter as a mean to reveal some details about the upcoming events or to express her point of view on the plot, but she also shares videos or interviews through the net. This makes people feel a deeper connection with the show.

 

4)      Active participation of the cast
The stars working in the drama are essential for web-marketing: they should interact with their fans as much as they can, post show-related pictures with official or new hashtags on Instagram, promote the new seasons on their official web pages or profiles, share pictures with other members of the cast, especially during the shooting of new episodes. People love to see that their favorite actors are genuinely involved in the tv series and to peek what happens in the backstage.

5)      Creation of a distinctive way of saying.
One of the most successful operations implemented by the Grey’s Anatomy team has been the one of creating some signature sentences (like the use of “Mc” in front of doctor’s nicknames or the sentence “you are my person”). Even though these ways of saying are not really used very frequently in the episodes, they have become part of the American common language thanks to an intense promotion carried on through digital channels.

Basically, the whole game is oriented to create communities and keep the audience always actively engaged. A great season finale is nothing if people don’t keep talking about it, wondering what will actually happen in the future of their beloved characters, as well as a new season cannot start at its top if not introduced by a proper countdown.

And now everybody… run to put your popcorn in the microwave and place yourfavorite armchairin front of theTV, Meredith Grey and all the other Seattle Grace surgeons are coming back tonight.

 

Sources:

http://www.threegirlsmedia.com/2014/02/28/greys-anatomy-social-media-tips-seattle-grace/

http://www.thepulsenetwork.com/content-marketing-post/how-tv-networks-use-content-marketing-to-promote-their-shows-year-round/

The increasingly relevant impact that the social medias have on the customer behavior and their fundamental role as a marketing tool for companies is now apparent to everybody, especially for the students of this Digital Marketing course. However, there’s another e-marketing trend that is catching on lately and moves exactly in the opposite direction. In fact, not only do the companies influence their target consumers by social media campaigns, but it also works on the other way round.

The Surge Movement Fb campaign

 

Coca-Cola, the international giant of the beverage industry, has just announced that the production of its 90s high-caffeine drink Surge will start again after 12 years since it has been withdrawn from the market. Surge, launched on the market in 1997 with a massive $50 million marketing campaign, failed to defeat its direct competitor (Pepsi’s Mountain Dew) and in a few years it completely disappeared from the market. Nevertheless, the most loyal consumers have never given up: a Facebook group named “the Surge Movement” (https://www.facebook.com/surgemovement), which today proudly shows more than 144.000 likes, was founded in 2011 and in 2013 managed to crowdfund $3.800 with the aim of posting a billboard not far from Coca-Cola’s headquarters asking them to get the beloved drink back. What is really surprising is that not only Coca-Cola decided to satisfy the request of the fans, but it also pleased them citing the Surge Movement in its official press release, addressing them great part of the credit for the Surge comeback.

Surge case is not just an isolate and meaningless one, since the pressure exerted by the customers on the companies through the digital means boasts of other relevant successes. In Italy, for instance, Unilever has just became the protagonist of a very similar story. After three years from the creation of the Facebook page “give us the Winner Taco back” (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ridateci-il-Winner-Taco/204841769536569?fref=ts), which to date has more than 13.000 likes, Unilever has decided to please all the nostalgics reintroducing the very popular 90s ice cream to the market. 13 years had passed since the Winner Taco’s production was stopped and, again, Unilever paid much attention in flattering the fans with public recognition to their efforts in this glorious endeavor.

There’s one significant difference between these two instances: on the one hand Unilever evaluated that it worth it to spend millions on a national marketing campaign for the Winner Taco, on the other hand Coca-Cola is reaching the diehards in a more cost-effective way through a digital channel (Amazon). This could be an interesting example of how the Anderson’s Long Tail concept applies and how simple is it today to reach all the niches through the e-commerce.

It truly seems that a new digital trend is actually spreading in the marketing world and that the connections linking companies and customers are becoming everyday more tight. Quoting the words of Vitali, the Brand Building Manager Ice Cream at Unilever Italia, marketing managers “learned to listen and carefully analyze the messages that people, and especially the fans of our products can communicate through the internet channels. It’s the only way to understand the real market trends and respond correctly with products”.
So guys, internet has really given us the power!

Sources: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-15/how-a-facebook-group-convinced-coca-cola-to-re-release-surge
http://www.unilever.it/aboutus/newsemedia/comunicatistampa/ritrna-winner-taco.aspx