Case Study
How the BBC used impactful formats to highlight the plight of our #PerfectPlanet on Twitter
Key Results
6M+
impressions
1.2M
video views
40%
engagement rate
The opportunity
Sir David Attenborough (@AttenboroughSir) is, like our planet, one in a billion. So when his latest five-part documentary series launched on BBC iPlayer (@BBCiPlayer), the broadcaster turned to Twitter to help build anticipation around the release of #PerfectPlanet.
Filmed over four years, “Our Perfect Planet” is both a celebration of life on Earth and a powerful warning about the effects humans are having on it. With research showing that environmental issues are a key concern for young audiences, Twitter allowed @BBCiPlayer to engage with these topics, particularly around the final episode in the series.
The strategy
Attenborough’s programmes are known for capturing scenes from the natural world that will take your breath away, so @BBCiPlayer created video and carousel ads for “Our Perfect Planet” that matched the series’ incredible production values.
Using striking animal-led footage, the videos raised awareness of the launch date while the single-destination carousel ads were used afterwards to highlight particular issues covered by the series. People could swipe through the cards to find out how different habitats were being affected by humans.
@BBCiPlayer used tools including demographic targeting, follower lookalike, and conversation topics to identify two audiences to target pre-launch: People who love to talk about must-watch TV and those with a passion for nature and the environment.
With the final episode really emphasising the message of the series, UK-wide premium Spotlight and Trend placements were used to further boost the conversation at a key time. Those who had engaged with the video adverts pre-launch were also targeted again afterwards.
01
Choose the right products.
@BBCiPlayer used video to great effect sharing short powerful clips to help to take audiences on a journey from awareness through to consideration.
02
Time it right.
Premium products were held back until the end of the series in order to further amplify the existing conversation, rather than being used at the start of the campaign when messaging was cold. @BBCiPlayer did this in part with the use of carousel ads.
03
Match the content to the message.
@BBCiPlayer used best-in-class content that matched the epic scenes from the series to tell an emotive story.
The results
“Our Perfect Planet” was another huge success for David Attenborough – and it made quite an impact on Twitter, too.
The video adverts were viewed 1.2M times, with over 6M impressions, raising awareness of the series before launch. Meanwhile, the carousel ads saw an engagement rate of 40% – significantly higher than the Twitter benchmark of 3.4%. The Spotlight and Trend placements also garnered 24M total impressions with over 4,500 uses of the #PerfectPlanet hashtag.
When the goal is to land topics with high talkability then Twitter is a great partner. This principal platform understanding led the planning for this new show. Video tweets previewing the show helped us achieve initial high impact. This activity was followed by testing the revamped carousel format, which helped inspire new conversations about the show. Finally, we complemented this with premium buys to create a noise, however rather than do this at launch we held the big splash back to a pivotal moment in the series where we knew conversation was likely to be sparked. This allowed us to enhance the reach and bring the brand in to the conversation.
Solutions Used
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