Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

To build buzz around the release of His Dark Materials, a fantasy series based on Philip Pullman’s spellbinding, award-winning novels, HBO Asia wanted to roll out a captivating social campaign across the APAC markets. For all three phases of the campaign, we conceptualised and delivered social-first launch concepts introducing the show’s magical universe through unique character assets and education pieces to get new fans acquainted with His Dark Materials' rich lore. The campaign’s biggest highlight was an interactive launch activation on Twitter, where fans got to discover their daemon - a magical animal-like companion - by submitting three emojis.

Background

HBO Asia saw the launch of His Dark Materials, a title that followers of the original novels were already excited about, as an opportunity to drive up subscriptions of the HBO GO service - especially in the Philippines where the OTT platform would be newly launched. To heighten viewers’ anticipation, they wanted to position the show as the next Game of Thrones. We were asked to conceive pre-launch, launch and post-launch social concepts that would unite existing fans of the book trilogy and reel in new audiences with the show’s mythical and emotional themes. Our main objective was to bring His Dark Materials to life in a way that excites and engages new and existing fans alike, and strengthen HBO Asia’s social and brand presence in APAC.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Our creative challenge was to introduce His Dark Materials in-world themes to HBO Asia’s followers, who may be unfamiliar with the story and characters. We decided to immerse the audience in the magic of His Dark Materials and generate social conversation by creating an interactive Twitter activation where fans could tweet HBO Asia to discover their personalised daemon. On launch day, we prompted fans to send @HBOAsia their 3 favourite emojis. We rewarded responses with a customised still that showed fans what form their daemon would take, which they could retweet or react to.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Our target audience was chiefly split into two segments - existing His Dark Materials fans and HBO Asia fans who may not know the franchise. Unlike followers of His Dark Materials’ owned channels, @HBOAsia’s followers would likely have no context of the story and would require a more impactful introduction to Philip Pullman’s universe. At the same time, we wanted to create content compelling enough for existing His Dark Materials fans, and attract them to follow and recognise @HBOAsia as the home for all things His Dark Materials in the region. With this in mind, we created the #WhatsYourDaemon Twitter activation as an engaging, surprising way for newcomers to His Dark Materials to dip their toes in the universe and yearn to find out more, while driving existing fans to champion their fandom and spark conversations.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

From project kick-off, we worked under a 3-week timeline to produce the initial CTA video and customisable #WhatsYourDaemon template, flesh out a creative playbook with guidelines and watch-outs for live responses, and compile an image library of animals categorised by types of emoji. During the activation’s launch, our assembled team of designers and copywriters spent 12 hours matching fan submissions to daemons and crafting responses on the fly. To generate extra reach and attention, we also tweeted call-outs to His Dark Materials talents such as Lin-Manuel Miranda, surprising them with their own daemons. By the end of the live activation, we created 135 unique pieces of content.

List the results (30% of vote)

The #WhatsYourDaemon Twitter activation amassed over 2M in audiences reached, with the CTA video alone receiving more than 638K views and capturing 165 new followers. The entire campaign’s content earned over 72K engagements. Our marathon of tweets also earned the attention of His Dark Materials star Lin-Manuel Miranda, who responded to his surprise daemon, as well as participation from Singaporean media publishers SGAG and Geek Culture.