Who want some engaging digital ads without intruding on viewer experience

It has been proven that creating interesting, unique advertising content without intruding the user experience is critical

In Showtime, a mobile marketing agency, the app team, as well as our digital creative design team, started partnering with our program marketing department. Program marketing is essentially the brand managers for the shows and the company is trying to do thing differently.

“The program marketing team also has the responsibility for creating the creative in our paid media campaigns,” said Ken Todd, vice president, of digital content syndication and mobile development at Showtime Networks, Inc., New York. “So, as the mobile marketing spends continued to grow, we wanted to go beyond the typical banner ad that we have been doing, which was basically program promotion, tune in with a tap to watch the video.

“There’s obviously a great space for that type of mobile advertising, but we wanted to carve out a couple of special executions on the media plans to try to really focus on using some more interactivity using the experience that have developed using native applications for mobile devices.”

The network is known for its attention grabbing mobile material across all platforms, advertising and its own content.

Data integration
Todd displayed some examples of some of the company's most successful ad campaigns.

The premium network sponsors the application for the annual SXWX festival that creates a way for Showtime to develop something out of the ordinary instead of the traditional banner advertisement. 

In the second year that Showtime sponsored the app, it tapped a real-time trending data approach used in the previous year’s version of the app but incorporated it with show promotion. 

For instance, the Showtime show Penny Dreadful was promoted on the SXSW go app with tarot cards that users could get a digital reading from, incorporating trending data from the festival.

Tarot card feature in the SXSW Go app in 2014

In this year’s festival, Showtime provided a streaming loop of programming to watch while waiting in line as well as an on-demand feature. The banner ads on the app were themed to coincide with the festival and Showtime programming such as “tempted to sneak away, Join the stream,” for the show The Affair.

The banner ads also integrated with the landing page of the app.

Standing out
The network also executed a takeover of the New York Times’ tablet app for the launch of the show, Ray Donovan, where consumers could view an interactive video promoted the show. Consumers could tap on the video, pausing it and providing more information about the character.

This was a simple and engaging way for viewers who were not familiar with the show to become involved and get an overview of what the show was about.

A shake-to-reveal ad was developed for the show Homeland, too. Users would shake their mobile devices to uncover more about the show and could click to watch the trailer.

Engineers also created a way for users’ mobile devices to vibrate coinciding with an explosion for the season four trailers of Homeland. 

Homeland Season Four's mobile ad campaign 

A recent Penny Dreadful ad campaign allowed users to pan through the environment of the show and tap anywhere interested consumers would want to learn more.

“As we go through the creative process every time, we’re thinking about how can this be different, how can this utilize the capabilities of the native device and how can we stand out in the crowd to make our programming really jump out at the consumer,” Mr. Todd said. “We know that the mobile device is a very intimate and personal device and we’re trying to be very careful not to disrupt your experience.

“But if we catch your attention, we want to immerse you in our programming that Showtime provides and give you a memorable experience,” he said.