Doctor Who became the highest streamed show during the holiday season by partnering with GumGum and Havas to drive tune-in viewership.
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), the UKâs national public service broadcaster, offers a wide range of news, entertainment, and educational content across TV, radio, and digital platforms. One of their hallmark series, Doctor Who, celebrated its 60th anniversary in December 2023.
Recently, viewership for Doctor Who had declined from its peak and the BBC sought to turn that around. The BBC, along with its media agency Havas Manchester, partnered with GumGum to deliver a targeted, real-time optimised ad campaign.
Using the GumGum Platformâ˘, the world's first solution to combine high impact creative with advanced contextual and attention-based tech, the campaign reached users with exactly the right mindset for the message - in only the most contextually relevant digital environments.
The BBCâs media agency, Havas Manchester, identified six categories of audiences that the campaignâs creative would need to reach â on a scale from âhardcore fanaticsâ through to the more elusive âlapsed Whoviansâ and generalised drama enthusiasts.
The campaign needed to engage these audiences within only the most contextually relevant environments, with ad delivery that was tailored for increased audience attention.
The Doctor Who campaign helped to deliver a massive increase in viewing figures versus previous series. In fact, this Christmas special became the highest streamed show over a 7-day period on iPlayer over the Christmas holiday.
Effectively, the campaign re-wrote engagement benchmarks for the BBC, with unprecedented completion rates for trailers. It also performed extremely well on Click Through Rate (CTR) and viewability metrics, with a 19% lift in CTR, a viewability rate of 90%, and an In View Time rate of almost 36 seconds.
Additionally, the campaign was proof positive that brands no longer need to rely on cookie-based targeting and personal data in order to reach relevant audiences online. They now have a powerful, privacy-first option that they can turn to, combining advanced contextual targeting, attention optimisation, and high impact creative.
finalist for the wires global 'best digital campaign'
finalist for the manchester publicity association inspiration awards 'best digital campaign'
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