As bi-coastal Creative Director based in LA, I jumped feet first into the entertainment category, leading creative teams through a new client partnership with E! on the 2019 People’s Choice Awards. Being the voice of popular culture, the PCAs are an important tent-pole moment for the E! Network. Although they already owned and covered the People’s Choice Awards Red Carpet Event since the ‘90s, this was only their second year as owners of the award show itself. In order to make this the pop culture event of the year, we needed to tackle the biggest challenge head on—how do we make people who care about pop culture, care about the E! PCAs? We uncovered that at its core the PCAs, as an event and a platform, allows people to get closer to what they love about celebrities. The extraordinary, like watching Lizzo perform, to the ordinary, like watching the Kardashians get glammed up, and everything in between—makes celebrities a reflection of the best in us.
Our goal is to increase tune-in to the awards by driving awareness and brand relevance. Another challenge is how do we break through when there’s so many award shows. However, the PCAs are different. With categories for everything pop culture—Music, Movies, TV and Internet—the People’s Choice Awards is the only award show that allows you to decide who should win. It’s a fun spectacle, with all your fave celebrities and amazing music performances. To make this a huge success we have to link the award to E! Network, get people to engage earlier with awards content; drive people to vote for their favorites; and make this “must see appointment TV”—an event where you’ll want to gather around the TV with your friends/family to take in everything from the red carpet to the aftershow.
The creative content had to be culturally relevant, innovative, organized, and robust—being able to cover a 9 month period. The target audience was not just pop culture enthusiasts—there were 8 niche subgroups. I developed the fan journey (which wasn’t the average consumer journey) and the overall strategic approach to the phased campaign—while also ensuring each phase drove specific actionable goals. I concepted the umbrella idea and tactical creative concepts for social, videos, voice, and experiential. We had to evolve E!’s brand assets while also using the previous year’s event assets (for the most part) and create potential original content. I led the creative teams through content development, which entailed high volume deliverables for each of the 5 phases and each social platform.
Role / Creative Director, Creative + Art Direction, Client Management, Concept Creation, Creative + Social Strategy, Design, Production
THE LEAD UP
During this first phase of the campaign, creative consists of the 2018 highlights as refresher content as well as 2019 teasers while drive linkage and raising awareness of the event.
VOTING PERIOD
The second phase consists of creative for nominee announcements, drives votes, and inspire talent and super fan engagement.
“WE’RE ALL FANS” DIGITAL SHORTS
At the end of the day, celebs are fans just like us. Whether they’re secretly obsessed with Vanderpump Rules or pulling for an underdog like April the Giraffe, they have favorites too. We’ll kick off voting with this candid series that catches up with celebs behind the scenes—during glam, getting bubble tea, or in the middle of cooking dinner—as they cast their votes for the 2019 E! PCAs.
*Concept work
*Concept work
PRE-EVENT PHASE
The third phase consists of announcement content, driving urgency to tune-in and encourage coviewing of the red carpet and awards show. People voted more than 1 billion times with one week still to go.
MORE, MORE MORE
The fourth phase consists of creative content that drives tune-in and generate real-time engagement.
The fifth and final phase of the campaign consists of creative that recaps the event—while maintaining buzz, igniting social chatter, and reinforcing linkage.
*Concept work
ALL / MONDELEZ + NBA / NABISCO SNACK PACKS / MY LITTLE PONY / THE GIFT OF PELOTON / CRISPERS SNACKS / OREO STAY PLAYFUL / E! PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS / PELOTON BIKE / RITZ CRACKERS / CLEAN + CLEAR / HALLS MINIS / CHIPS AHOY! / JOHNSON'S BABY / L'OREAL TEEN SKINCARE / TINA FEY + GARNIER NUTRISSE / GARNIER THE WHOLE PICTURE / JOHNSON'S WHY COTTON / TORI KELLY + GARNIER FRUCTIS / ACUVUE GLOBAL / GARNIER SKINACTIVE / MISC.