The situation

AXN had several US premiere shows in Fall 2010 where many of the titles had to be highlighted and communicated. The challenge was to come up with a simple and easy-to-understand message that summarizes and holds all these premiere titles together, basically a “packaging” we could use to market these shows under the brand of AXN and at the same time works in different markets in the CE region (Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria) for our target group.

Objectives and target group

The core target group of the Fall campaign was young adults, both male and female, in the 18-34 age-group. Coming up with a message that is built around the American being of our premiere shows seemed a great choice. Generally in the Central European region, when it comes to the USA, it represents quality (US production – stands for quality). It’s popular - everybody knows about it - everybody watches US shows / movies, US stars are the no1 celebs in the media, and more importantly it’s still „cool” to travel to the US from the CE region: something that doesn’t always happen to our target group.

The strategy

Our goal was to pull an integrated off-air/on-air/online campaign, the “Big American Season” where the main message is: AXN BRINGS THE BIGGEST AMERICAN SHOWS. Our big premiere shows were all the sum of the biggest shows in the US and their stories take place in the US. This time we thematized the message as previously we mainly used seasonal messages („Spring brings” / „Fall brings”). Our competitors had US shows that period of the year too but they didnt highight this feature; it was the message and the „US packaging” that was going to differentiate us from them. The concept: „...something big is about to happen”, „...they are coming to AXN this FALL”, „...they are the biggest, they are 100% American and they are here for you”. The main message: AXN brings you a big American season with the biggest shows.

Execution and implementaion

Each of our Fall premiere (US) shows took place in a very distinguishable, American environment. Our On-Air/Off-Air advertisements were meant to play with the emblematic landmarks of these cities / territories and to express the „Big” and „American” features of our shows. As for other materials we’ve made: regionally city-light posters, billboards and print ad layouts, online banners have been made with the same look and message. Also, an online quiz game was launched as well in our CE countries at the beginning of October, where the players had to answer several questions about our US premieres. Lucky winners could travel to Los Angeles and visit the SONY studio. In Hungary in the first phase of the campaign, billboards and city light posters were promoting such key shows as Justified, Californication – Season 3 and Damages - Season 2, they appeared all over in Budapest and in 5 bigger cities in the countryside. In Bulgaria, Poland and Romania the promotion was equally strong, featuring all the big titles relevant for that region.

The budget

To execute the entire Big American Season campaign, we’ve got only one (1) full-time AXN-dedicated marketing representative in Hungary and Romania, while in Bulgaria, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia we got only one (1) half-time (!) AXN-dedicated employee, while in Poland we’ve got only two (2) full-time AXN marketing representative. To execute the entire Fall campaign in Hungary app. 210k USD was spent while in Poland this was 263k USD and in Romania it was 157k USD. (This incl. the making of the creative materials, On-Air, the media bookings, the agency fees etc.)

The measurement

Measuring the success of the campaign from the ratings is quite complex as not only marketing (off-air) but on-air, online, scheduling and the content itself, not to mention the competitors, the media-noise and the overall TV market in that period of the year all effect the success of a campaign. Thousands of players were registered on the Big American Season game in our countries, while the Fall campaign brought a great PR coverage, also we’ve got a very positive feedback from the business partners and the from the journalists.