Overview

HBO Max, home to groundbreaking series and documentaries, launched a TV series marketing promotion for the Gossip Girl Reboot which premiered in July 2021. The goal was to build up an audience of superfans, directly engage them in an authentic way, and ultimately convert them to drive tune-ins and viewership, boost subscribers for HBO Max, and encourage word-of-mouth marketing.

How HBO Used Community

HBO Max used Community to directly engage audiences in an immersive way, sending blasts to fans at the exact same time that Gossip Girl aired an episode, making the show feel real and authentic. They also used Community’s segmentation feature to send exclusive relevant content to fans of specific favorite cast members, driving increased engagement and excitement for the next episode. The team used response clustering to reply back to fans and poll the audience for insights.

Success Metrics

The Gossip Girl marketing campaign on Community resulted in 9X higher engagement rates as compared to social media, with direct and immediate access to fans. The team achieved a 56% engagement rate with their response clustering strategy, and the audience polling insights were shared back to socials and worked well to keep fans feeling included in all the action. The team achieved a 37% lift in subscribers and a 61% lift in total viewing hours on HBO Max during the campaign.

Key Features

The key features of the Gossip Girl marketing campaign on Community included direct engagement with fans in an immersive theater way, segmentation to send exclusive relevant content to fans of specific favorite cast members, response clustering to reply back to fans and keep the relevant culture conversation going around the storyline, and polling the audience for insights to share back to socials.

Conclusion

HBO Max's Gossip Girl marketing campaign on Community successfully drove high engagement and boosted subscribers for HBO Max. By using direct engagement, segmentation, response clustering, and polling the audience for insights, the team was able to directly engage superfans in an authentic way and ultimately convert them to drive tune-in and viewership, boosting subscribers and encouraging word-of-mouth marketing.

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