Cook embarked on some fascinating and
ARF award winning research for their series Key
& Peele. She explains, “Three
seasons in, Key & Peele still
lacked awareness and engagement by African-American and Hispanic viewers who
should have been the show’s biggest fans.
We needed to identify how and where prior communication efforts had
failed and subsequently informed a customized Multicultural marketing
strategy.”
Noted here is that this research makes
use of emotional response research based on community panels. This form of
research is gaining more attention in the industry where consumer motivations
and emotional responses can become part of the fuller analysis of a piece of
content.
I asked Cooke the following questions about her research efforts for Key & Peele:
CW: What research did you conduct for this series?
CC: There were three key research studies which were running
concurrently.
Research Study #1- Understanding Multicultural Millennials:
The cornerstone of this research comes from an extensive Multicultural
Millennial Collaborative Community of over 300 active online members. The
virtual “salon” convened on a weekly basis for over six months and covered a
broad range of topics – from the latest memes making the social rounds to hot
button topics like Trayvon Martin and immigration policy. We also
conducted multiple ethnographies, focus groups, expert and academic interviews,
content analysis, and secondary research. This is some of the deepest and
richest research Comedy Central has conducted to date.
Research Study #2- Key & Peele Series Deep Dive:
Comedy Central conducted a series of in-depth focus groups around key show and
communications elements -- including talent appeal, humor sensibility, show
format, and messaging. We spoke with current Key & Peele
viewers and Multicultural Millennials who from a psychographic perspective should
be viewers across 3 markets, New York City, Los Angeles, and Cleveland.
Research Study #3- Key & Peele Semiotics Study:
With a topic as complex as race, we knew we needed to combine our
consumer insight methodologies with extensive cultural analysis. We had
to understand Key & Peele’s current cultural resonance and identify
future opportunities to amplify the franchise’s cultural voice and
impact. We leaned into a semiotic analysis of popular content, and Key
& Peele in particular, to help build our narrative through a company
called Truth Co. Our use of cultural analysis combined with consumer insight
work enabled us to bring to the surface hidden but essential insights.
CW:
What were the calls to action?
CC: The Key & Peele season four launch would be a
radical departure from previous campaigns. Our goal was cultural
resonance, a psychographic defined by common sensibilities and attitudes.
Marketing adjusted the focus from trying to attract African Americans and
Hispanics to attracting the psychographic within the demographic:
multiculturally aware Millennials who are culturally plugged in and social.
We partnered with brands like WorldStarHipHop, DimeMag, and
DatPiff for the first time. Our YouTube campaign was also nuanced and
extensive – in addition to retargeting fans that had previously watched Key
& Peele or Comedy Central videos, we built out targeting buckets for
our Multicultural psychographic. Key and Peele continued to amplify their
icon status and cool cred with high profile appearances and partnerships like
guest editing the Entertainment Weekly comedy issue and hosting a standing room
only panel at San Diego Comic-Con.
CW: Did anything surprise you? What
were the "aha" moments?
CC: Beyond likes and ratings, perhaps the most significant
impact has been a fundamental shift in the internal narrative around the Comedy
Central core viewer. Now when we say “The Comedy Central viewer”, we
don’t automatically picture a 24 year old White guy. The Comedy Central
core fan can be Black, White, Hispanic, male or female and we will serve all of
them. The only thing we ask of them is to love awesome comedy.
No comments:
Post a Comment