Overview
Taylor Herring became Doctor Who’s
first external PR agency in 2006 - winning a four way pitch staged
by the BBC to handle PR for the multi award-winning hit drama
series.
Brief
Key objectives:
maintain and continue to build profile of the show, consolidate
relationships with children’s market
and mainstream media alongside targeted press initiatives to:
• Manage the brand while promoting and position the programme
in the competitive context of the television schedules.
• Deliver key positioning pieces.
• Establish Freema Agyeman as a star in her own
right.
• Maximise press opportunities for David Tenant
in key opinion
forming titles.
• Exploit the production team – make up/costume/designers
etc.
• Amplify awareness of the show via creative stunts
rooted in
episode stories and show history.
• Handle unit publicity building anticipation
for the show
upfront and around each episode.
• Drive tune in.
• Stage screenings.
The Campaign
We used our time with David Tennant to deliver a number of key
opinion forming and unique stand-out pieces. These opportunities
included David interviewing the Kaiser Chiefs in NME, shoots
with Attitude and GQ magazine (two publications that had never
previously covered Doctor Who) and an in depth interview/behind
the scenes 5 page cover piece for The Times.
Freema Agyeman was fully media trained and completed over 100
interviews - front loaded with print press across the board moving
from teen and children’s press to in depth interviews,
tabloid interviews, fashion shoots and red carpet appearances.
The coverage included shoots with Glamour, In Style, Company,
Marie Claire and interviews with The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily
Star, teen press, children’s magazines and niche Sci-Fi
press. Broadcast opportunities included interviews with Jo Whiley,
Blue Peter, BBC Breakfast and GMTV.
Force 10, Taylor Herring’s digital PR division, kicked
off their side of the campaign with an exclusive video interview
with David Tennant on MSN, the UK’s most popular entertainment
website and additional interviews with Freema Agyeman on AOL,
The Sun Online, Digital Spy, Marie Claire Online and BBC News.
Force 10 also created a MySpace page for Martha Jones, with
a blog re- telling each episode from Martha’s point of
view. The blog has proved extremely popular, with almost 100,000
regular readers.
To create a buzz around Series Three and the new companion,
we decided to stage a celebrity gala premiere where we showcased
the first two episodes to two hundred cherry picked press and
celebrity Doctor Who fans. We hired the Crystal Room at the Mayfair
Hotel and attracted a high calibre of celebrity including Jonathan
Ross, Dawn French, Jo Whiley, Celia Imrie and Catherine Tate.
We achieved widespread media coverage from TV and radio coverage
to print media.
We utilised members of the production team – Paul Kasey,
monster extra, Edward Thomas, set designer, and Nick Briggs,
voice artist - as much as possible with the aim of getting Doctor
Who into different
sections of the media and to take pressure off principal cast.
Coverage was achieved in The Independent ‘I want that job’,
Financial Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail.
We also arranged interviews for Russell T Davies, writer and
executive producer of Doctor Who with Sunday Telegraph (Seven
magazine), Observer (Media and Business), Broadcast and Independent
on Sunday (Review).
We set up over 80+ interviews opportunities for the guest stars
including: Catherine Tate, Sarah Parish, John Simm, John Barrowman,
Anne Reid, Roy Marsden, Reggie Yates, Dean Lennox Kelly, Hugh
Quarshie, Miranda Raison, Ryan Carnes, Thelma Barlow, Mark
Gatiss, Michelle Collins and Jessica Stevenson.
We also carried out a poll on the Doctor Who website to find
the scariest monsters of all time, gaining widespread coverage
in national press. We utilised Nick Briggs for a full day of
broadcast interviews (BBC Breakfast, Radio 5 Live plus 20 regional
radio stations as well as recording jingles for BBC Radio 2’s
Jonathan Ross show, BBC Radio 1’s Scott Mills and Virgin
radio’s Christian O’Connell show).
We also created intrigue and photo opportunities with a Dalek
out and about on the streets of London.
|
