Showtime needed a digital ad campaign for the SXSW mobile app sponsorship. They wanted to spark curiosity and encourage users to interact with Showtime content during downtime at the event.
The goal was to make a fun digital experience for Showtime to use in the SXSW app and maybe more. We want attendees to be excited to learn about Showtime shows and streaming. The best apps are the ones people like to use a lot. These apps keep users engaged and make them want to come back again and again. One way to make an app like that is by turning it into a game.
Features of a sticky app:
Giving mission to a player
Challenges and levels to the game
Give incentives to users
Unlock advanced items
Sense of affinity
Multiplayers
This personalized and entertaining experience creates positive emotional connection between player and brand. Plus, if there is an inbuilt social referral systems, these games can achieve viral status.
CLIENT
Showtime and SXSW
OFFICE
New York and Austin
DISCIPLINES
Creative, User Experience, Technology, Strategy
ROLES
Creative Director: Chris Harris
Senior Art Director: Caroline Schaffer
Concept
One
Showtime Trophy
Hunt @SXSW
Content is king. Whether it’s a teaser trailer for a new Showtime series, unreleased episodes for the next season of Shameless,or behind the scenes footage featuring your favorite characters, people will go to great lengths to gain access to their favorite content. This concept employs the Showtime SXSW app as a platform for engaging users in a race to unlock clues, awards and incentivesby interacting with the app over the course of the week. Each award and its associated unlockable level features an icon inspired by a different Showtime series, like House of Lies, Shameless, or Nurse Jackie. The app design encourages users to progress through levels that culminate in exclusive content unlocks and other incentives, with the possibility of a major Showtime reveal at the climax of the event. The more difficult the task, the bigger the payoff.
Schedule:
Sponsored banners promote the trophy hunt.
SXSW Lineup:
By starring specific events, users will be able to earn trophies—encouraging them to engage with the app in order to earn exclusive Showtime content.
Attendee Match:
Users could also earn trophies by connectingwith SXSW attendees through the app.
Trophy Section:
User can click the Showtime banner at anytime and it will take them to a unique page that will showcase all of the Showtime Trophies. Here, the user will be able to interact with the trophies they’ve earned and view the tasks at hand in order to unlock other trophies.
Trophy Description:
Users can click on any trophy and an overlay will reveal a description of what needs to be done to earn the trophy.
SXSW Unlocked:
Once the user unlocks a level they can click the SXSW Unlocked tab to see what content is now available exclusively to them.
Examples: Videos (teaser trailers, behind the scenes footage, full episodes) Discounted Memberships SXSW Drink Tickets for Badge Lounges Free Coffee or Shirt Secret codes to get into VIP sections Easter eggs for future shows
Concept
Two
Showtime Character Quiz
This concept invites users to take a quick quiz to discover which Showtime character matches up to their personality. Users will then have the ability to experience SXSW the same way their favorite character would.
Showtime Character Quiz:
The quiz would be designed with no more than six questions and use visual images as answer options to move users quickly through the experience—much like popular Buzzfeed quizzes.
Results:
Once completing the quiz, the app will match users to a Showtime character from a series, like House of Lies, Shameless, or Nurse Jackie. The banner then changes to match their character and their event listing will now show events that best match their personality—featured at the top of their event list. This experience helps curate ideas for which event users might potentially be interested in attending, while simultaneously driving awareness and interest to Showtime shows that may have not been previously known to the user.
