This campaign drove the sense of excitement and anticipation around the arrival of Danny Dyer’s new on-screen family to Albert Square.
THE CHALLENGE
EastEnders is a jewel in the crown for BBC One, however it has been through a tough time recently with declining share. Christmas 2013 was an important point as it marked the start of an editorial revival. One of the big stories was the arrival of Danny Dyer on the Square. We wanted to leverage his popularity in the social space and mobilise his fans to spread excitement and generate buzz, to attract casual fans back to the programme.
We also aimed to increase Facebook engagement with 16-34 yr old males, who are more difficult to engage, and increase EastEnders’s Twitter followers.
THE SOLUTION
Building on our existing EastEnders campaign, the sense that ‘everything’s changing’, we created a campaign plan starting 7 days out before transmission. We created anticipation that Boxing Day would be one of the biggest, dramatic moments over Christmas on EastEnders. We achieved this by distributing a series of beer mats around London pubs bearing an iconic image of the Carters outside the Queen Vic with #boxingdyer on. This hashtag also went out on-air to generate excitement for fans to speculate about what they thought would happen with his arrival. Countdown images released on Twitter and Facebook also reinforced the hashtag each time.
The activity on Boxing Day was then ramped up with a series of old East London style boxing posters, squaring Danny Dyer against other legendary Queen Vic landlords and posted on Facebook and Twitter. We also gave the EastEnders web team ideas they could implement beyond his arrival on the square, keeping interest and the conversation going.
THE RESULTS
#boxingdyer trended over the period and EastEnders was the most-watched soap on Boxing Day, with over 7.2m viewers.