Talk about champagne problems: Your highly touted television series, based on very popular source material, premieres to big ratings, fan adoration and a second season renewal. Now, you need to ensure the show’s trajectory keeps rising. How do you avoid the dreaded “sophomore slump”?
That’s where the marketing team comes in. But in our fragmented digital media ecosystem, spreading the word about your Season 2 premiere date is not enough. Indeed, there’s much time, effort and money spent on molding a show’s return into the kind of must-see event that will draw viewers old and new.
Two streaming titles, both in the action/fantasy genre, recently pulled back the curtain for The Envelope, detailing their sophomore marketing strategies. The first, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” which returned to Disney+ on Dec. 10, follows the adventures of the titular son of Poseidon and demigod (Walker Scobell) from co-creator and executive producer Rick Riordan’s book series. The second, Netflix’s “One Piece,” which returns March 10, follows the ragtag Straw Hat Pirates of executive producer Eiichiro Oda’s manga series as they pursue the valuable One Piece treasure.
For both, the logistical intricacies of casting announcements, trailers and key art are important — but they’re nothing without the attention of each show’s very active and powerful fandom.
“You go in knowing that ‘One Piece’ is the number one manga in Japan, but just how meaningful that is to fans is always something that is so inspiring,” says Jonathan Helfgot, Netflix’s vice president of marketing, U.S. and Canada. “Seeing how fans responded to the characters and the execution of these characters that they’ve loved for so long was wonderful to see and something we knew we had to bridge between Season 1 and 2. We knew that keeping those characters alive in their lives was going to be so important.”
Remaining relevant in the offseason has become an even greater challenge in the era of extended hiatuses between seasons airing. “Percy” had 23 months between its Season 1 finale in January 2024 and last month’s Season 2 premiere. The gap is even wider for “One Piece” as more than two and a half years will have passed by the time new episodes drop. Blame the 2023 Hollywood strikes along with the reality that big fantasy projects take considerably more time to shoot given the elaborate sets, costumes and special effects required.
As such, both streamers’ marketing teams employ an “always-on” approach to engagement with fans. In “Percy’s” case, “This is, as you can imagine, a hyper-engaged, rabid fan base on social and we’re tapping into them routinely and making sure we’re continuing that dialogue. We then want to make sure we’re honoring them with what we are delivering from a campaign perspective,” says Erin Weir, executive vice president, marketing for ABC and Disney Entertainment Television.
Those marketing campaigns go beyond social media posts to keep anticipation at a fever pitch and actively engage the fandom while also attracting new viewers. “This is really as big as it gets in the television space,” says Weir of the “Percy” campaign, which included multiple partnerships, an activation and cast panel at San Diego Comic-Con last July and, closer to the Season 2 launch, takeovers in New York City and Chicago as well as a 3D billboard activation in Hollywood with a water-filled tidal wave effect. “This is something that people are anticipating and are coming into our streaming services for and really wanting to make a moment out of it.”
Even though the second season of “One Piece” (subtitled “Into the Grand Line”) doesn’t air until March, a steady stream of press releases have been coming for months. For example, the first teaser trailer and Season 3 renewal came in August; October saw the Season 2 premiere date announcement and first look photos; and November touted Season 3 beginning production in South Africa with the casting news of Tony winner Cole Escola (“Oh, Mary!”) as morally challenged Bon Clay.
The marketing machine didn’t take the holidays off either. “One Piece” released a Christmas Day NFL pregame announcement that fan favorite character Tony Tony Chopper, previously announced as appearing in Season 2, will be voiced by Ikue Ōtani, who also voiced the anime character for nearly two decades. Also on the same day, iconic character Dr. Hiriluk (Mark Harelik) appeared in live action in a global first look.
When the sky’s the limit for hyping these big shows, how competitive do things get between teams? Not much, says Helfgot, adding it’s a good thing to look at what the competition is doing, but all goes back to the fandom. “The best marketing and the best fan engagement comes when you are a fan yourself so you get excited about other people getting excited,” he says. “It’s more to just stay in touch with the fan part of ourselves.”
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