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THE CHANNEL

ISSUE 2 2012

experience, or adding a social

contest to your format. Contests

have always been a great way to

involve people with a brand; social

contests of the type ‘upload vote &

win’ are rapidly gaining

momentum as engagement

marketing tool within social media.

So why not combine such a

contest with a TV show? Offering

an opportunity to win a place on a

TV show is a great driver for

participation. With a chance to

make a dream come true,

contestants have a powerful

incentive to upload a webcam

audition, and then gather votes

within their social network; thus

automatically promoting and

spreading the contest itself. And

given the right triggers, you can

monetise participants through opt‐

in marketing tactics; thus opening

up new revenue streams for your

content.

GOT TALENT

This spring, Blue Circle (the Dutch

production arm of Fremantle) and

broadcaster RTL4 decided to add a

social contest approach to

ʹHolland’s Got Talentʹ. They

involved Talents Media as specialist

to produce the contest based on its

proprietary social contest platform.

The shared objective: experiment

with the power to engage the

audience while creating new value

for sponsors. The challenge: create

a great experience without

infringing the original format. Sell

it to a sponsor, then produce and

market it successfully as an add‐on

format with tangible ROI.

INTEGRATEDAPPROACH

From the start, producers and

broadcaster decided on an open

and integrated approach to the

project. In just a few meetings, they

created the concept and gaming

mechanics together, and an outline

of the production plan and sponsor

proposition. From then on, the

shared enthusiasm for the concept

and a strong desire to make it a

success fuelled the project. It

enabled the partners to move

mountains: quick concepting and

sales to sponsor Bristol (a leading

clothes and shoes retailer in The

Netherlands) – in the pre‐

production phase the digital arm of

RTL and Talents Media operated in

sync to produce the complex online

and social media elements of the

project, while Blue Circle focused

on the appropriate calls to action

from within the Holland’s Got

Talent show.

THE CONTEST

Pre‐production was a breeze;

building awareness for Sidekick

proved to be a lot harder. Looking

back, we see two reasons for this.

ʹHolland’s Got Talentʹ itself got

massive attention through a great

marketing & PR offensive by RTL.

Sidekick started in the shadow of

this PR success, the audience was

simply not aware of Sidekick until

well into the third week of the

concept. On top of that, the concept

of becoming Sidekick was not

immediately understood by the

audience. It took serious work from

project partners to optimize the

online contest experience while

creating clear calls to action from

TV promos and from the show

itself. Finally in the third week, all

elements were optimized and the

online contest took off through

social media. And when the

Sidekick was actually chosen and

appeared in the live shows, the

audience became fully aware of the

concept. And that’s when the

engagement and excitement really

took off.

THE LIVE SHOWS

Visible to the TV audience, in the

live shows the Sidekick commented

constantly on candidates through

his own Twitter channel. The

results were astounding. And

clearly indicated that a need was

served: the Twitter audience at

home in no time loved the

opportunity to interact directly

with a person in the show – they

discovered that the Sidekick could

serve as their eyes and ears in a

place they would love to be

themselves. Many comments

expressed the desire to become

Sidekick next year…proving that

the opportunity to play a role in the

live shows will be a powerful

driver for participation in Sidekick

2013. Sidekick built an audience of

17,500 followers in just five weeks –

about 1.5 times more than the show

itself. At peak moments, Sidekick

received several direct messages

per second. During the final live

show, ʹHolland’s Got Talentʹ

dominated all media: no1 TV show,