thirteen #find the girl
TRANSCRIPT
The challenge
Thirteen was BBC Three’s first new drama since moving online.
The challenge – how could we provide an enhanced audience experience as part of the new BBC Three, using social media, Daily Drop, and Best Of as well as iPlayer?
Thirteen Lost YearsThirteen: Lost Years was a personalisation project that showed you the events from your life you would have missed if you had been kidnapped for 13 years like Ivy Moxham. It was produced to raise awareness of the show before it was released while introducing the themes and concept of Thirteen.
Thirteen #findthegirl#findthegirl was a parallel story set in the world of Thirteen. It played out on social media and Tumlbr and was curated on BBC Three’s Best Of & Daily Drop sites.
The #findthegirl brief#FindtheGirl was designed to run alongside Thirteen’s weekly release schedule in order to:
•Support the launch of BBC Three’s first major online drama
•Deepen audience engagement with the show
•Maintain audience interest between weekly episode releases
The concept• Use marketing budget to create online drama content
• Tell a five-week story on social media between episodes
• Create a character that ‘exists’ online on social media that can communicate with the audience
• Create digital experiences the audience could interact with
• Create video to make the character compelling
The storyWhen a young girl is kidnapped, wannabe journalist Sarah Hays decides to investigate herself
But she needs the help of the audience to find her as she finds clues, chases leads and hacks websites for information
Over five weeks of the shows release schedule, the audience can follow Sarah and help her solve the mystery
Digital experiences, video and social content
INTERACTIVE VIDEO
TWITTER BLOG
Experienced across social, desktop and mobile
Collaboration was key• Unique collaboration between Digital Guerrillas,
BBC Three, and Thirteen TV production which began at script stage
• Thirteen creator Marnie Dickens wrote all scripts for #Findthegirl
• Thirteen TV production supported #findthegirl with locations, art department and additional support
• Crossover: The actress playing our character was featured in the main show, while actors from the main show featured in #findthegirl
Results• Created a fan community around Thirteen• Gave fans a focal point for discussion
• Provided addtional content, entertainment & talking points for Thirteen
• Bridged the gap between episode releases
• Gave BBC Three a new way to promote the show without consistently repeating themselves
Created a positive perception of BBC Three online
Increased engagement with the show
Fostered a community of fans
Created an identifiable character and emotional link
Short Form Drama – Mirrored the Longform
Engaged a young social media led audience
As we moved through the story, the audience challenged us…•We underestimated how dedicated our audience would be•Smart, engaged, capable, social, tech-savvy•We had to create reactive content on-the-fly to satisfy their desire for more content
Who were our audience?
• Devotees read every update, solved every puzzle and posted frequently
• Active players participate often in the game but less immediate
• Casual players enjoy the experience without contributing
• Lurkers dip in and out of the story
Who were our audience?
• Aimed for females aged 16-24• 79% of Twitter followers were female• 21% of Twitter followers were male• 81% of Twitter users tweets reached
organically were female
• Ages of followers appeared to range from 16-24, especially within the devotee audience
Thirteen on iPlayer
• Exceptional iPlayer views, opening with 2.2 million for Episode 1
• Episode 4 beat Eastenders to the no.2 most requested show on iPlayer
• Final episode got 370k requests during its first full day
• All episodes featured in the top 10 during their first full week on iPlayer
iPlayer views (to 31 March 2016)
Ep 1 = 2.20m
Ep 2 = 1.86m
Ep 3 = 1.67m
Ep 4 = 1.49m
Ep 5 = 1.04m
#findthegirl on social media
• Almost 700,000 tweet impressions• 7,000 link clicks• 25,000 impressions of a single
tweet at key story moment• Tweet engagement as high as
22% (standard closer to 1-2% - a highly engaged following)
• 1000 comments on the blog – 258 in one day
Our Twitter account with no pre-promotion before the first episode achieved:
#findthegirl web traffic
• 1,272,576 pageviews• 356,864 uniques
Thirteen programme page
• 140,804 pageviews• 43,710 uniques
All #findthegirl websites
Recommendations on enhancing TV Dramas online
• Effective promotion before and during the campaign
• Audience targeting and seeding• Reactive editorial content• Interactive digital content• Independence from weekly TV
release schedule
What did it cost?
Including estimates for staff –£120k
using existing BBC platform – £7K
