Lucy Johnstone  0:00  
There's a huge appetite for brilliant storytelling, and it's just that people consume different stories in different ways. And for us, it's about, how do we meaningfully connect with audiences and fans who are desperate for more content, whether that's behind the scenes content or spin offs junket content. So anything we can do to meaningfully connect with fandoms is the most important thing to sort of build the worlds for those shows.

Ben Walker  0:37  
Hello everybody, and welcome to the CIM marketing podcast today. We've got a very special show. We have got sky with us today, Sky Television. We've got Lucy Johnston, who is entertainment marketing director for Sky and now TV, and Tim Yao Struthers, who is Head original brands at Sky. It is fantastic to have you on your show. Thrilled to have you on the show, I watch a lot of sky. That's not a blip, but just made me think, before we came on to the show today, how times have changed. When I grew up, and I'm showing my age here, there were three channels you almost had a captive audience as long as the household had a television I was thinking of how your job as TV execs has changed, marketers in television has changed that you've now got people not even watching television in the same room, sometimes watching it on the move. They've got a vastly greater choice of shows and marketing these things must be a very different game, too. It was when I was a kid. What do you think's been the main difference? Lucy, given the massive change in consumer behaviour,

Lucy Johnstone  1:41  
it's a really good question. And I also remember when there were only three channels. And I think not only have we moved away to a world where it's so fragmented, whether you're watching, you know, linear TV or your different streaming platforms, but we've also moved away from families or gathering in the living room to individuals watching what they want across various different devices and platforms when they want to watch it. So I think really the headline here is that people want flexibility and control, but I think that's a really exciting challenge for us as marketeers, what we want to do is create more of those shared experiences again, and really think about how we can cut through with audiences and bring people together in such a fragmented world,

Ben Walker  2:34  
that's really interesting, isn't it, because if you're a sports event, you act as a magnet because it's Live, and you get people together for that shared experience. If you're a sort of as live or real time game show, you know, like the traitors or love Island or whatever, you could sort of create that to an extent as well, by everybody talking about it at the same time as it's broadcast. But you don't have that luxury. So how do you go about creating a shared experience with your fantastic shows?

Lucy Johnstone  3:05  
Yeah, I mean, a lot of our content, you know, sometimes people love a box set binge, and they don't necessarily want to sit down on a Friday thing at 9pm and want it. They want to watch it when they want but when you have those big, sort of hero shows that you really want to sort of bring everyone together for. I think we think a lot about how we can sort of reflect that in our marketing as well, and bringing together people for sort of big live events, whether that's, you know, premieres or junkets, and sort of connecting with our audiences, you know, through social and making them feel like they're part of that event, and giving people that kind of behind the scenes access. We feel like that's a really good way of sort of connecting with audiences and making the show feel bigger than just that particular slot when it airs,

Tim Yaw Struthers  3:59  
it's using social as well as in terms we obviously make a show, but there's so much other content around the show. So whether it's social assets, sometimes there's a podcast, sometimes there's TV specials, so you're right, like sports and like things big live shows, but often a consumer will discover a show for a social clip, which then they're discussing with their friends, and then they're going off and watching the show, and then they'll come back. So the marketing piece, and the marketing piece involves everything, really, it can be social, it can be publicity, how we're showcasing the show, and the UI. The UI is like the front of sky. You know, when you turn on your TV and you see what's there. So all of these different levers, I think, bring people together to discuss, especially now, and I used to always say the younger audience, but actually, it's not the younger audience. Everyone is social. I was on a plane the other day, the lady in front of me, she was. Getting on a bit. She was on Tiktok, and she was watching clips from a TV show which I won't name, because it's not one of ours, and she was engaging with it. And so the power of social to connect, but then it also drives people to go and view something is is super important, and very much what our like overall strategy is, is that, like, Okay, people see billboards, but you're very rarely going to have someone comment on a billboard, but more you are going to have them comment on his own behind the scenes piece a podcast where they're deep diving into what does he actually mean when he said that in that episode? So companion content is a really important driver for that. What you've mentioned as that shared experience so that people have the opportunity to discuss it on their feeds. I guess

Ben Walker  5:51  
it's interesting. You leaning into social in that way, because you could see it as a competitor. You're the long form the novel, if you like to social media's clip instant gratification, but what you're saying is that you're leaning into those formats. So you're not necessarily seeing YouTube and Tiktok as a competitor, but as a

Tim Yaw Struthers  6:14  
collaborator, you're a collaborator. So if you think about so there's from an AV point of view, audio, visual. So things like trailers and social, social clips, we partner daily, if not hourly, with these different platforms so that that anyone can have access to a trailer or clip. So we work very, very closely with all those different platforms again to drive awareness for the show with a view to them watching so it isn't it is not seen as a competitor. They've seen they're seen as very, very close collaborators and the senior team and our social team when we're strategizing how we're going to launch a show, they're often day long workshops with with these different platforms to say, right, what is going to be our approach from their platform point of view? How are we going to launch a trailer? Are we going to do a Tiktok Live, a live at a premiere? So it's very much we work hand in hand with those platforms.

Lucy Johnstone  7:19  
And I think going back to what we were saying around you know, how do you bring people together? I think, as Tim said, we don't see these platforms as competitors. You know, there's a huge appetite for brilliant storytelling, and it's just that people consume different stories in different ways. And for us, it's about, how do we meaningfully connect with audiences and fans who are desperate for more content, whether that's behind the scenes content or spin offs junket content. So anything we can do to meaningfully connect with fandoms is the most important thing to sort of build the worlds for those shows.

Tim Yaw Struthers  7:58  
That is something the BTS piece My background is theatrical, so I worked at Universal pages for a very, very long time, too long to even say the number then, you know, my age, but we had a huge focus on behind the scenes content. And I think one thing that sky, not the sky, but sky. We have a dedicated on set capture team, so they will be on set capturing all the behind the scenes. And actually, that content performs really well because, and I think Lucy mentioned people, you can watch a show, but with anything, whether you're reading a book, you want to know the background story, and that BTS allows the consumer, the fan, to enter the world, they will see something so Day of the Jackal, Eddie, Redmayne and LaShana Lynch. We had a lot of behind the scenes, them getting ready and all of that sorts of stuff. And the content performed amazingly well. Because the thing about content and entertainment is, for us, we are upkeep in it every single day. We're seeing it from before, pre green light to like goals on TV and hopefully gets awards. But not everyone else can see that behind the scenes of how a show was made, how the relationships between the directors and the producers. So the BTS piece is understandable being super successful, because it just sort of opens the door to the show that our customer or consumer is is loving, and again, building that fandom, especially for shows that are returning. If a consumer feels like they're super engaged and feel like they've had that inside look, they're going to talk about it more, and they're and they're going to engage, and they're going

Ben Walker  9:44  
to watch it. That's fascinating. So other than the Day of the Jackal, gonna share some state secrets. What have been your most successful grabs? Your most successful books, you know, grabbing the eyes and ears of the audience in this crowded marketplace.

Lucy Johnstone  10:00  
Yeah, I think there is still, like a real excitement and desire from consumers to see the kind of big, traditional stunts and sort of experiential activations. And I think that, in a way, covid has sort of helped that because people were, you know, separate for so long. I think this idea of kind of bringing people together again and kind of bringing to life the world of our shows are really exciting for fans. We had a really brilliant stunt for the launch of Sweet Pea series one last year starring Ella Purnell. And one of the sort of iconic elements of the world of the show is the Gazette which she works for, and we brought that Gazette to Waterloo station, and actually, Ella Purnell herself came down to the station. She didn't make herself known, but she posted it on social media. And I think what was great about that was not only were the fans and people who were excited to watch the show able to interact with this piece of the show, but also it's really important for us that we're building really strong relationships with the talent that we work with on the show. We know how important it is to them, and we know how important it is for us to make sure we're marketing it in a way that feels representative of the show. And it's great when you have your talent come down and support those big activations. When I think back in the last sort of six months, that feels like a big standout moment for us.

Tim Yaw Struthers  11:26  
The other thing that we lead into a lot, and actually it hasn't really been a major thing in TV, definitely in the theatrical world, is this thing is also music. So shows always have a title sequence. So the opening titles, there's always a track. So one thing, and again, going back to where I was before we did it a lot, so we would work with Billy Eilish run no time to die, or Pharrell on despicable. It's almost like a separate vertical that you can tap into. So when you have a track, and we also did it on the Day of the Jackal as well. We had an artist called Celeste, a British artist. She released a track which was the title sequence track, and she then performed that track on Graham Norton. She was on Radio One. She did loads and loads of press. So it was it gave us almost an entirely separate campaign, but all laddering back to the show, but it gives you exposure in places that we wouldn't necessarily have a presence on Spotify or Apple Music for a TV show, but by releasing a single, we were able to do all of that. There's lots of different levers, where the experiential, the music piece, and I think as Sky our shows are generally like top tier, there's big talent, and so artists want to be associated with those shows. So it's something that we're doing. There's a show coming up that we're actually in negotiations with an artist right now, and that show doesn't TX for another eight or nine months, but we're already looking at, how can we use that artist and it will benefit them as well, to elevate the show.

Ben Walker  13:08  
It's interesting. People have been listening to this, or I certainly listen to these. Think, because there's no set formula. You know, this is really creative ideas. Where does it all start? What's the seed? What's the creative process that leads to these very diverse outcomes.

Tim Yaw Struthers  13:23  
Lucy and I's teams are inseparable. We work probably every 20 minutes with each other, where we're talking a lot. So we work incredibly upstream. So I sit within a team who are the commissioners and the exec producers of the show. So we're across shows very, very early, and one of the first pieces of work that we do is we create something called a show playbook is essentially the overall global strategy for a show. So we will work alongside editorial, so the commissioners and the executive users within sky, but also the production, the indie that we will work with who are making the show, and we align with them on what is the positioning of this show. And positioning, essentially can be one or two sentences that describe the show. It generally will include what the genre is, what the narrative is, the tone and some of the character. I mean, the deck can be 20 pages, or it can be 40 pages, and that is a deep dive into what this show is, but with a marketing and comms. So more comms lens on it. So the main thing is the positioning. But then we will go into the brand pillars. What are the five hooks of this show that are marketable? Those can be anything from talent to themes to why now, and we will also look at audiences. We'll also look at what the show is and what the show isn't. So when the teams are briefing to agencies or internally, they have a very clear picture of what this. Show is because the one thing that I think happens a fair bit overall is that people aren't close enough to the show until much, much later. So things are briefed in and then when you actually watch the show or the film, well, actually, that doesn't work. So we work very, very hard on creating a deck looks very pretty, lots of nice pictures and all of that sort of thing. And that is shared with all of Lucy's team, all the publicity, every team that will have touched the show, both in sky, but also with our broadcast partners around the world. And that is used as a foundational tool to then market, the go to market teams, both within sky and externally, will use that to build their local marketing strategy or local publicity strategy, and everything sort of ladders up to that, and we stay very, very close to what that global strategy and Brand piece. I think the other important thing is we treat each show as an individual brand, so it isn't something that we are going right. We've got to show. We'll see you in 10 months when the show is finished. We're working even before that show has started shooting, and it sometimes iterates. Sometimes the positioning may change as we start to see the show, but it really is an early, early piece of work that will be seen right up until that show.

Lucy Johnstone  16:30  
TX, and as Tim said, the playbook becomes your sort of central point of truth for what the show is. So my team look after the go to market campaigns for Sky and now, and what we will do is take that playbook that will be the foundation for our brief. And I guess the next most important step is, you know, who are the audience? Who are the fans? Like, who are they? Where are they like? What are their behaviours? You know, where can we find them, and what we will do is pull together a brief that goes to our media agency and our creative agency, and that becomes the kind of first kickoff point for that campaign. And I think it's probably worth saying there's two kind of really important steps that gets us to those big, exciting ideas, as you mentioned before, the first is, as part of that creative process we'll develop with our creative team a creative platform, and that becomes your sort of creative springboard for whether that's like the social agency or an experiential agency, or whoever it is that's working on this particular show in this campaign that becomes their creative springboard. So that's really important. And then the other thing that we do, which I think is really brilliant, is we have what we call ambition sessions, and we bring together all the teams working on a show. We might play the first episode, we might have a Q and A with talent, and it's a really inspiring opportunity for everyone to hear what the show is, watch the show, and then get together and think about just blue sky, thinking ideas, all of these things together create a really inspiring starting point for anyone working on the shows.

Tim Yaw Struthers  18:15  
For us, as well as sky, our shows have a global life, so Lucy's team are working for the UK launch, but as we are like the originating market of a show, the work that Lucy's team does and the work that my team does is always shared on a global level as well. The playbook is that strategic piece, and then we will also work very closely with broadcast partners around the world and say, This is the campaign that we are putting together, not that they're going to directly follow. They often gives them really good inspiration. And as we know, it doesn't matter if you're in the UK, you can see what's happening in any country around the world. So our big ambition has been over the last few years, is is really to have these global brands so there's consistency around the world, not just in terms of creative, how the poster looks on the trailer, but actually the messaging. How are individual markets around the world talking about this show? Because the last thing you want is to have this, 100 different messages around the world, and that's a big part of more the brands team that I send that work with. So if we have a US partner, we will have regular meeting with them. We'll be sharing our insights. We'll be sharing over we're going to do this experiential. We're going to do this and often we get alignment and work very closely with them. And I think from a TV standpoint, we are often working with 20, 3040, 100 200 broadcasters, so for us to be able to share that strategic thinking with them, I think, is super beneficial. So by the time we're all txing, and we always ideally like to look for gain date, that isn't, isn't always possible, but what we will see is. A consistent campaign around the world and messaging. And I think that really helps, especially when you're looking at social you're not seeing wildly different marketing campaigns for the same show.

Ben Walker  20:13  
Do you ever go back to the old school, big, physical events, roll out the red carpet?

Lucy Johnstone  20:17  
I think there's a role for traditional marketing and digital to work hand in hand. I think they can really sort of complement each other. And I think actually it's really important to be doing both. And as we talked about before, I think there's absolutely a role for those big, you know, old school red carpet events, experiential stunts that really kind of drive, that emotion, that quality, that credibility. You know, we love a big red carpet premiere. Not only do they make the sort of launch of a show feel like a really big moment, but as we've talked about before, that also a really great opportunity to connect with audiences through social to make them feel like they're also experiencing this event, just you know, on their phones, on their sofas, I think with the sort of incredible progression of digital and innovation in that space has led to really exciting opportunities for different ways that we can connect with audiences and fans. Personalization has come on sort of leaps and bounds, and being able to connect with people at the right time, at the right moment, and with the right message for us, that's also a really important part of how we're getting audiences attention, because it's a fight for attention at the moment, and you've got to be able to cut through. And you can cut through with a big, bold premiere, but you can also cut through in a really personal space when someone's just sitting on their sofa and on their phone.

Tim Yaw Struthers  21:46  
We spoke about Day of the Jackal, but it's a really good example. So for us, the day of the Jacko is our biggest ever launch, whether original or adult, and I think our focus and thought for that was we want to launch this as a global show, a global brand. And so we lent a little bit into how the theatrical world do. We did a world tour, we went to New York, we went to London, we went to Madrid, we went to Rome, and we went to Berlin. And that's very much a theatrical you do a world tour, but what that does is communicate to the consumer. This is, this is a really big show. There's scale to it. And as you saw these different tour stops, the Daily Mail, for example, and social, they were all sharing pictures of all the different events. And it felt even though it was peacock in the US and sky in Europe, it all felt super connected. And we had coverage for that, for those different premieres for about a month, if not more. And there were these beats, seeing Eddie and leshanna and Rome and Berlin, and it made a really big impact. And our premiere in London was on on the south bank. We took the singing songs of the Royal Festival Hall. That was the entire red carpet. It felt like a huge, huge, huge event. And again, I think that sort of sent a message to consumer, but also actually to press, that this is a show we need to cover. And they did, as Lucy said, the big events still have a huge, huge currency. How do

Ben Walker  23:29  
you measure the impact of big events and digital campaigns? You know, how do you measure the impact it has beyond what it would otherwise have got just by being a great show?

Lucy Johnstone  23:39  
You know, there's lots of different metrics that we look at, some of which we can share. So viewing, obviously, is important. Awareness is important, but it can be hard for things like awareness. It can be sort of hard to quantify that cleanly, but what we do try and look at is the full picture. So we look at pr coverage, we look at levels of social engagement, so we can see, you know, how our assets are tracking on different channels. We also look at social sentiment as well, as Tim said, we look at talkability. And actually, what these metrics help us do is also be reactive as well. So once the show has launched, what we don't just do is launch and leave. And it's really important for us to think about, what are people saying about the show? What are they really enjoying? Is there a particular character that we can see people are talking about, or a moment, let's lean into that and click that up on social. And we can look to push that out. And then also in season, you know, we can look at what sort of critics are saying about it, and we can use critical acclaim to sort of bolster our campaigns as well. So it's really important for us that once a show has launched, we are measuring the sort of success of it and thinking about how we can be reactive to that.

Tim Yaw Struthers  24:59  
I think what. Sort on a more sort of personal level, and I've seen this on quite a lot of shows recently, when your friends started to talk to you about it, going back to Day of the Jackal, I remember being in the sky office, but just around and about and genuinely, I kept on hearing people talking about the show, so you know you've done something right. And actually, like you said, you first of all, you need a brilliant show, but without the marketing and all of those pieces, the publicity and social the awareness isn't there. So I think for me, like if I hear out on the street people talking about it, I know that we've done a good job. How do you keep everything fresh?

Ben Walker  25:43  
Not just think, well, that was successful. Let's do something similar.

Lucy Johnstone  25:47  
I think from a marketing perspective, you know, as soon as you put we want bold innovation on the plan, agencies immediately sort of roll their eyes, because, you know, you always want something innovative on your plan, and we're very clear when do that as to kind of what the expectation is that we mean from an innovation perspective, is that that we want to see the use of AI, or we want a big, bold stunt, or we want to use personalization on this plan. But I think that what helps you in our world will help keep things fresh and relevant, which is what audiences want. Firstly, making sure that we're staying on top of trends. You know, it's really important for us that we're staying on top of trends in social media, what are people talking about? But also really being in the minds of the fans. When you work on a show, you need to know inside out. You need to know the characters inside out. You need to know the plot, the storylines. You need to be in Reddit, sort of seeing what the fan theories are. And I think that that's when you can really tap into those insights that fans are really connecting with, and that's when you can come up with those brilliant ideas.

Tim Yaw Struthers  26:57  
The fans are the stakeholders as well, because so organic talkability is something you can't force it to happen, so you have to feed the fans. So we've got a show called gangs of London, and they're very consistent fans on that who are always wanting to know when the next show is coming, who's coming. So we created, and it's not a new thing, a specific Instagram account for gangs of London, which is always on in between seasons, we will be feeding updates on the next season, but then also looking back at the previous seasons. So bringing them on the journey is super important, because they are the ones that will talk for you when you don't have a marketing campaign in play. Again, theatrical, there is huge, huge franchises so fast and furious, all these different things on and the people who will turn their cars into a fast and furious car, or name their children after a character and that fandom you cannot buy, but you have to feed it. You have to be able to give them access, which I think is something, again, weird life cycle, but how you're continuing engaging with fans, especially in between seasons, because sometimes with TV, you have it might be two years before the next season comes. So you don't want those fans to forget. So you must keep them engaged. And that's not easy, because so you can't just repurpose everything. You have to really find new and exciting hooks that they're going to discuss.

Ben Walker  28:36  
It's hard work, isn't it, creating originals. I mean, some people will look at it and think, Well, television, you can run a television channel. You can run a television company without actually making any of your own stuff. Some people might listen to this. It is fascinating. It's an amazing creative process. But boy, oh boy. What a Herculean tasks that these guys have got, making originals. It must give you a commercial benefit, otherwise, presumably you

Tim Yaw Struthers  29:03  
wouldn't do it for us. Sky originals is our original brand. For us, it's about creating the best possible content that for the sky customer, I think, as a British company, we commissioned for this guy customer, and your point was, how do you keep it fresh? We have an amazing editorial team, and you would have seen the shows that have come out over the years, from Chernobyl to Day of the Jackal to a show that we have called war that's upcoming. So I think it is about making sure that the best possible content is available. And when you're creating originals, it's been led from here.

Lucy Johnstone  29:46  
So, and I think new original content, it's great for the customer, but also the right show can bring in new customers as well, which is great. But equally, you know, when you have returning. Series where audiences have already fallen in love with the characters and the world. You know, we want to make sure that we're really getting behind those and it keeps people coming back as well. So really, it's just about creating stories that people genuinely care about, and that's the most important thing for us.

Ben Walker  30:17  
That's fantastic. I mean, we've got a lot of people listen to the show all the way through their careers, particularly, though you, some of our younger audience will be listening to this and thinking, that is the sort of thing that I would love to do later in my career. They want to get there. If you got any tips for them, one thing that you could pass on as a sort of state secret, I have more than one, but I'll be quick. The key, key thing is, you must love content.

Tim Yaw Struthers  30:43  
Yes, if you are like you can be a brilliant marketeer or a publicist or social strategist or a Creative Advertising person if you don't really love content, not saying you have to love every show, because no one does. But for us to be able to connect with an audience. You have to have an emotional like feeling about something, and that's how you connect. So for me, if you don't love content, and that can be music, film, whatever, because the job can be hard, but the payoff of seeing your campaign that is really true to a show, because, you know, that show is really great. And then the other thing is, I think, and we've, we've leant into a little bit like fandom is very important. You have to understand the audience, and you have to watch lot just the content that you're working on, other people's content, the campaign they're doing, what is going on in culture, what is on the news? Because in order to resonate, you have to be there and understand what people are thinking and feeling at that moment in time.

Lucy Johnstone  31:51  
Yeah, and I would agree with both of those, and content has always been a passion for me. I think if, if you want to get into marketing, I guess, more generally, and perhaps you have a passion, it might not be content, it might be something else. I would say my advice would be to be endlessly curious. So whether that's with people that you meet, you know, be curious about culture. Be curious about what makes audiences tick or fans tick. And because really, marketing is about understanding human behaviour and observing people. And I guess the more you observe and the more you explore, the better you will be. And I think therefore, if you're endlessly curious, you'll say yes to opportunities, and you'll say yes to continuing to learn. So I think I always say this to my team. When we have new people start out in the team, just ask questions and be curious. And I think that can go a really long way.

Ben Walker  32:48  
Great insights. Thank you very much indeed. That's Lucy Johnston, who is entertainment marketing director from sky and now TV, and Tim yaustruthers, who is the head original brands at Sky. That's all the time we have for this episode of the CIM Marketing podcast. You can find detailed show notes and links to additional resources mentioned by our guests@cim.co.uk If you enjoyed this episode and find it helpful, please consider supporting the show by leaving a rating and review. It really helps grow our reach. The CIM Marketing Podcast is hosted by me Ben Walker, and produced for CIM by Brindley Walker, no relation. Thanks again for tuning in to the CIM Marketing podcast. We'll catch you next time.

Karen Barnett  33:32  
CIM training courses cover all marketing subjects and provide you with the confidence to drive real results. Choose now from our comprehensive learning portfolio on the CIM website, and do learn and develop the contents and views expressed by individuals in the CIM Marketing Podcast are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the companies they work for you.