23/03/2023 - The marketing team behind the BBC Studios series has won the first edition of the prize, with a Special Mention going to the Netflix campaign for Lupin

l-r: Sarah Bold (BBC Studios), Mathieu Abadon (Netflix) and Phil Ball (BBC Studios) with their awards (© Sylain Lefevre)

Series Mania is well aware of the need for broadcasters and platforms, faced with the dizzying number of series available each week, to create innovative and unique marketing campaigns so that the series get noticed and have every chance of grabbing the audience’s attention. Thus, the festival has created a new award intended to highlight the promotional activities for a show.

Given to one of the five finalists and handed out by a jury made up of marketing and creative executives from All3Media, Banijay, the HEC business school and Series Mania, the very first Series Mania Creative Campaign Award was bestowed upon the marketing team at BBC Studios (represented by Phil Ball and Sarah Bold) for the series Doctor Who: Flux. The aim of the campaign was to play on the sense of mystery, and to blur the boundaries between the universe of the series (founded on an IP that is extremely famous in the UK, with a first run of series having been aired from 1963-1989) and reality, in particular through a treasure hunt that began with a clue hidden in the first teaser. The alternative-reality game, dubbed #FindTheDoctor, proved hugely successful with the audience and benefited from some intense press coverage for six weeks.

A Special Mention went to the Netflix marketing team (represented by Mathieu Abadon) for the campaign behind Lupin, which hinges on a wish to reinvent an iconic IP and a strategy rooted in surprise and fun, with the ultimate goal being to spark an international conversation, all while relying on Omar Sy’s star power. The whole package came together in a well-known, and now viral, scene involving the actor putting up a poster on the Paris Metro while in disguise.

(Translated from French)