The situation

Objective: To support affiliate partners on a pan-regional level with an acquisition or retention campaign, according to their business priorities.

Strategy: To focus on new Discovery Channel content with a proven track record within region and globally. The promotion was a specially scheduled stunt week of programming featuring the premiere of the highly successful series \'Dirty Jobs\' with related \'Men at Work\' surrounding programming.

The premise of the promotion was to feature the most unusual, dirty and often dangerous jobs which are undertaken by a small number of people and highlight the new series \'Dirty Jobs\', which would air a premiere episode every day that week.

By leveraging new episodes of Dirty Jobs which has already generated awareness and noise in region, we were able to introduce new programming in the stunt and draw both new and existing viewers and subscribers.

Core message: \'Take the risk, get the reward.\' This related to both the nature of the less pleasant or dangerous jobs featured in the programming as well as taking the \'risk\' and signing up to one of our operators and getting the reward of great Discovery Channel programming.

Objectives and target group

Whilst the core target audience for Discovery Channel is upscale men 25-39, the acquisition and retention campaigns targeted all adults: both existing and potential subscribers.

Affiliate partners in Russia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Latvia, Slovenia and Malta were targeted for collaboration.

The strategy

Across all markets and activities a full media mix was used, ranging from print ads and campaigns to guerrilla leafleting and online media. The most common media channels are detailed below with examples.

Consumer Marketing Press Ad: Prior to the start of \'Men at Work\' week we ran a teaser campaign. The press ad featured a mock letter from a worker to his boss resigning from his position to pursue one of the dirty and dangerous jobs featured during out stunt week. This helped us to effectively communicate to our target market and also raise awareness amongst potential subscribers.

Each participating partner ran a competition alongside this campaign, each using different elements to support the promotion. Targeting potential, existing subscribers and viewers, selected print advertisement space was acquired to promote the new stunt.

The advertising was tactically placed in newspapers as it would target our intended demographic (both current and potential) on their way to work in the morning or on their way home in the evening.

Subscriber magazines and leaflets in payment centres (the most popular way for all subscribers in Russia and other participating countries to pay for your cable or satellite bill) would highlight the programming content to all current subscribers.

Online: an online promotion was chosen as it is a well used tool for leisure activity amongst our target demographic. We created web banners that our partners placed, to drive traffic to their web sites some of which included competitions which the affiliated conducted.

Leaflet: the leaflet was used because it can be utilised in many different locations in different ways, directly targeting new and potential subscribers. It was placed in payment centres and as a flyer into newspapers, tv guides and subscriber magazines. One operator located their subscribers\' addresses and attached the leaflet to their household rubbish bins.

Execution and implementaion

Discovery Channel brand: The \'Men at Work\' week programming genre featuring the flagship programme Dirty Jobs.

This series was chosen as the strongest promotable for the start of our autumn programming, as it encapsulates the Discovery brand in its factual entertainment genre and target audience.

The budget

The core aim of the campaign was to maintain Discovery Channel as the number one global media brand. The refresh of the Discovery Channel brand in 2006 has seen the brand focus on being a factual entertainment provider. The \'Men at Work\' stunt week is true to this genre of \'real life\' story telling, whilst being highly entertaining, and is a consistent and well received theme by our audience.

The measurement

On-going tracking has consistently shown that Discovery Channel is perceived to be a brand of quality and expectations of it are high. We feel this campaign highlighted what Discovery Channel does best, providing high quality factual entertainment in real-world storytelling that puts viewers right at the moment of discovery. This campaign showcased the ultimate in real-world storytelling and targeted our upscale men audience through the different promotional aspects.

The mock resignation letter creative targeted the upscale male working audience who would be \'grateful\' to not have a job as dirty or dangerous as the ones featured during our stunt week. This approach using imagery from some of our featured programming, Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs and World\'s Toughest Jobs communicated the core message of the stunt week programming.