As the second space heats up it’s continuously harder for a TV network to find the right platform to build a unique partnership with. This month National Geographic Channel’s popular reality TV shows Doomsday Preppers (about the lives of ordinary Americans preparing for the end of the world) and Rocket City Rednecks (about a genius hillbilly family from Alabama) are partnering across Yahoo!’s IntoNow to deliver a unique second screen experience. We spoke with Yahoo!’s Director of Business Development and Strategy, Sima Sistani and National Geographic Channel‘s Director of Digital Marketing Katy Anadale about the partnership.
For Doomsday Anadale discusses how they’re using IntoNow’s platform for “videos, photos and a trivia game where fans can test their survival knowledge against other fans of the show.” For Rocket City, they’re even integrating Papa John’s Pizza to provide a discount code to viewers. They’re also planning a live chat.
Sistani told Lost Remote about IntoNow’s growth over the past year, which includes a 124% year-over-year increase in TV show tags. Combining this growth with the scale of Yahoo!’s network definitely means that IntoNow is one of the two contenders to watch as the battle of the second screen heats up. Also, Yahoo!’s CEO Marissa Mayer has already declared how important this platform is by promoting IntoNow CEO to oversee all of the company’s mobile efforts. It’s great to see how front and center social TV is becoming for the evolving web company.
Lost Remote: How did this partnership come about? What are the details?
Sima Sistani: Networks seeking out the unique engagement opportunities of a TV companion experience look to IntoNow because we have a great product, and a built in community that we can activate around their shows. IntoNow is like no other experience because we can match second screen mobile engagement with the scale of Yahoo! to promote their shows. Specifically, for National Geographic Channel, we are surfacing extra content (behind-the-scenes photos, videos, and trivia) in addition to our existing popular feature set – such as creating memes and Discussion – for their hit show Doomsday Preppers. Additionally, we provide their broadcast advertisers the ability to make sponsorships of the show actionable within our show page.
LR: How has IntoNow grown recently? Any stats?
Sistani: IntoNow has seen a 124% year-over-year increase in TV show tags and its database spans more than 2.6 million airings and over 190 U.S. TV channels.
LR: What are plans for the future with NatGeo and other networks?
Sistani: NatGeo has already lined up their next event with us, for their returning show Rocket City Rednecks, which premieres on Nov 29. We are also partnering with ABC News, Food Network, and Discovery. We have some other exciting partnerships lined up that we look forward to sharing soon!
LR: Why are you partnering with IntoNow?
Katy Anadale: As television viewing continues to become more fragmented, the second screen experiences designed to provide active engagement and additional content helps to turn viewers into fans of our programs and provide an additional outlet for social sharing. So as we continue to develop our own 2nd screen experiences, we are partnering with existing technologies such as IntoNow that already have an extensive user base.
LR: How does the campaign work?
Anadale: Each campaign will be a slightly different experience. Both will include on-air call-outs to viewers telling them to sync now using their IntoNow app to get more or related content. Both will include videos, photos and the CapIt feature where fans can capture a screen grab of the show and create their own sharable meme.
For Doomsday Preppers a key aspect of the show is illuminating the preppers’ depth of knowledge and bringing to life the lesser known facts about potential disasters. Using IntoNow, we can distribute additional content impossible to fit within a the TV program in the form of videos, photos and a trivia game where fans can test their survival knowledge against other fans of the show.
For Rocket City Rednecks we have integrated one of our partner advertisers into the app. Fans of the show that sync with IntoNow will receive a promo code for a discount on Papa John’s Pizza. In addition to our advertising partnership, we anticipate doing a live chat with one of the Rocket City Rednecks. The Rocket City Rednecks are a lot of fun and full of knowledge, so I think our fan are going to enjoy the discussion.
LR: Why is social TV important to National Geographic Channel?
Anadale: People have been telling their friends about their favorite TV shows long before social networks and apps were around. And now that PCs, tablets and mobile phones have become the norm in the living room, we have the a have the ability to join the conversation and give viewers inside access to their favorite shows through IntoNow. We want our viewers to become fans so giving them the content that they want to share with all of their friends just seems natural for us
We want our viewers to become fans so giving them the content that they want to share with all of their friends just seems natural for us. In addition, our advertisers are very interested in activating their on-air advertising with 2nd screen experiences. By working with partners like IntoNow, we can easily bring their on-air advertising buys to a device that allows the user to directly engage with their product.