How to Build Hype for Your Video Series: Lessons Learned from Two Super Popular Shows

Today, marketers not only battle for the attention of a distracted audience, but also of a skeptical one. According to Social Media Today, only 4% of consumers believe marketers practice integrity. As a result, the standard email and social media marketing campaign can only take you so far. However, with Brand Affinity Marketing, marketers are able to cut through the noise and make people love their brands — all thanks to the help of binge-worthy content.

If you’re looking to dive into the world of Brand Affinity Marketing, chances are you’ve already started to produce your first video series. That’s great! But now that you’ve got a few episodes under your belt, how do you go about getting people to know your series even exists? What tactics can you employ to get that precious word-of-mouth marketing to flow organically? In this post, we’re going to look at two of the most popular shows in recent history — Game of Thrones and Stranger Things — to give you some ideas for where to get started!

Game of Thrones: A partnership with Aaron Rodgers

To generate buzz for their highly anticipated final season, Game of Thrones partnered with Aaron Rodgers, a superstar quarterback and super-fan of the show, to create a hilarious video series post on Twitter.

Sitting on his throne as the Lord of Greenwater Bay, Rodgers boasts about the Green Bay Packers’ enormous success and shows his love for Game of Thrones, helping the iconic show rack up over 5,500 favorites and retweets, proving that even the most famous celebrities bow down to the throne.

Partnering with influencers to promote your own video series is a great way to provide the social proof necessary to pique your audience’s interest and convince them to watch it. However, just like Game of Thrones did with Aaron Rodgers, it’s best to partner with influencers who actually support your brand. Audiences can sniff out an ad masquerading as a genuine shout-out faster than they click “Exit” on annoying pop-ups.

So, before you badger every influencer in your space to promote your new video series, ask the folks on your team if they’ve developed any authentic relationships with thought leaders in your space that might be willing to advocate for your new show. If so, get those conversations started and brainstorm some of the compelling content you create with them ahead of your pitch!

Stranger Things: A collaboration with Coca-Cola and Baskin-Robbins

In Stranger Things 3, two of the main characters work summer jobs at an ice cream shop. Naturally, Netflix saw this sweet opportunity (see what we did there?) and teamed up with Baskin-Robbins to launch Stranger Things-themed ice cream, like the “Upside Down Sundae” to build hype for their upcoming season.

Stranger Things 3 is also set in the summer of 1985, when Coca-Cola infamously altered their flagship soda’s classic formula. Netflix didn’t skip a beat and ended up joining forces with Coca-Cola to release New Coke for a limited time to add to the hype.

At first glance, Baskin-Robbins and Coca-Cola have nothing to do with parallel universes or telepathic teenagers. But since ice cream and New Coke play big roles in Stranger Things 3, Netflix’s collaboration with these brands made complete sense and, in turn, could cleverly grab their target audience’s attention.

If you decide to collaborate with another brand to promote your video series, be strategic like Netflix and work with one that has an audience with similar interests as yours, rather than the largest one. You’ll reach less people, but you’ll resonate with more of the right people.

Stranger Things: An amusement park take-over

A week before Stranger Things 3 debuted, the show took over attractions at a Santa Monica Pier and Coney Island amusement park. By rebranding rides, a fair, and an arcade, as well as bringing in a slime-filled dunk tank, the Hawkins High cheerleaders, and 80’s cover bands, they made people feel like they were actually in Hawkins, Indiana, which helped to skyrocket anticipation around the show’s third season.

Hosting an interactive event is a surefire way to generate buzz for your video series. Studies show that people value experiences much more than material objects, and when your fans can engage with your brand in-person instead of through a computer screen, they’ll feel more connected to you and will value your brand more.

Having a hard time imagining what this might look like on a scale your business could actually afford? Check out this blog post we wrote about the time we rented out a movie theater here in Cambridge, MA to screen our first-ever original series, One, Ten, One Hundred, for some inspiration.

Game of Thrones and Stranger Things: Two trailers worth watching

With over 63 million views on YouTube, the trailer for the final season of Game of Thrones is one of the most-watched trailers … ever, and for good reason.

By structuring their trailer so that the moment everyone is waiting for — the final battle between the Army of the Dead and the Army of the Living — is at the very end, their audience realizes that they’ll finally get to experience the show’s climax.

Stranger Things 3’s trailer, which has over 35 million views on YouTube, relies on a similar structure to generate excitement and buzz for their latest season. They deliver a suspenseful, action-packed preview of the season that also introduces some new villains, monsters, and storylines, getting their fans just as excited for what’s in store.

When crafting your video series’ trailer, consider taking some inspiration from Game of Thrones and Stranger Things by structuring it after your plot. This will give your audience a sneak peek of your video series’ concept, characters, and story, heightening their excitement for what’s to come and increasing the odds that they’ll share the trailer with friends and colleagues. To learn how we crafted the trailer for our new talk show, Brandwagon, check out this blog post.

Game of Thrones: A can’t-resist contest

A year before the last season of Game of Thrones premiered, Emilie Clarke, who plays one of the show’s main characters, Daenerys Targaryen, raffled off an opportunity to watch the final season premiere with her and attend an after-party in New York City on an online fundraising platform called Omaze. Within hours of the announcement, the site crashed.

Running some sort of contest or raffle on social media that’s tied to your video series is the perfect way to get people talking about your content. Plus, by limiting the number of winners to a small handful, you’re able to leverage the scarcity principle, which taps into your audience’s desire to attain rare things. Don’t be afraid to get creative with the items you give away, too.

For our latest video series, Brandwagon, we ran a quiz on Instagram Stories and gave away Brandwagon-branded t-shirts to the first three people to get the most questions about the show correct. And while this is certainly less glamorous than attending a fancy party in New York City, to the fans of our show, this was (hopefully) an exciting way to get some free swag!

Build more buzz for your next video series

Nowadays, consumers trust people much more than they trust businesses, so why not use your fans to your advantage and build more hype around your video series? Their display of love for your brand and excitement for your upcoming show is what will persuade others to hop on your bandwagon. So, get creative and generate word-of-mouth for the series you worked so hard to produce with these tips from some of the most-watched shows in the business!