Sling TV
AMERICAN ICONS
Creative Strategy & Development | Concepting | Art Direction | AI Generation | Production
Waaaay back in early 2024, before Kamala had arrived on the election stage, Sling was tracking sagging news viewer numbers as a majority of Americans tuned out of watching two objectively old men fight over the presidency like it was the best bench in the park, and strategized a campaign to try and fan the embers of a cooling audience segment. Despite this lukewarm political temp, the year of AI was erupting like so much liquid hot magma, and this project marked one of our team's earliest forays into leveraging that explosion. Leaning into AI's forte of bringing fantastical imagery to life, we set out blending revered cultural icons with modern settings with the primary goal being to stop thumbs and play on everyone's civic duty to stay informed (by watching live news for less with Sling, naturally).
Concepting
In-market Deliverables
Results
Obviously producing the same assets via shoot would've been expensive and time-consuming, if not impossible, given the client's quick turn deadline and absence of production budget - Abe impersonators ain't cheap or widely available. So the fact that we did it in record time with end products that garnered some of the highest praise we've ever gotten from our marketing partners meant we hit the target. It was so successful in fact that we were tasked with expanding the campaign into Q3 as the world was introduced to Kamala Harris as the new presidential contender. However, the political temp and corresponding brief had completely changed in the meantime; incentivizing viewers to tune-in wasn't an issue anymore. The revised challenge was making ads that reflected the absurd new election twist we couldn't stop paying attention to. At least one thing hadn't changed: Sling was still a great way to watch for a low price.
Re-Results
The Q3 campaign also was an unmitigated success, with record numbers of subscribers signing up with Sling to watch the race unfold...in a fiery car-crash sorta way. Not only did we cut the typical production time in half with rapid high-fidelity ideation, but we did it with zero external costs and saw a 54% lower CPA vs. benchmark, which meant more new subscribers for less per click. In a world where the existence of facts had become increasingly precarious, one thing was indisputably true: our team had established a winning streak of delivering concepts that exemplified what's possible when you embrace new creative magic, mix in traditional craftsmanship, and bring ideas to life that are only mildly crazier than actual reality - all while impressing execs and elevating the product along the way.