Lifetime’s Project Runway Uses Polling to Engage Audiences

Picture 19 Project Runway Case StudyBackground

Social media is playing a much larger role in television by engaging users with their favorite programs. A+E Networks decided to capitalize on this trend by integrating Twitter content into Project Runway’s “Fan Favorite” contest.

Project Runway is a reality television series on A+E’s Lifetime channel. The show focuses on fashion design and contestants compete to create the best clothes. A group of judges eliminates a contestant each week until a winner is selected. In its ninth season, Project Runway had already experienced tremendous success. The show had a loyal fan base and has been nominated for multiple Emmy® Awards including Outstanding Reality Competition Program.

The Fan Favorite contest was created to let viewers vote for their favorite designer. The votes would be tracked throughout the season and would not impact the judge’s decision on who would be eliminated. The designer with the most votes at the end of the season would receive a $10,000 cash prize and would be awarded the title “Fan Favorite.”

Looking to drive viewer engagement, Lifetime turned to Mass Relevance for a new way to connect with its large group of loyal fans leveraging social media.

Objective

  • Integrate social media into the on-air content: accomplished through on-air graphics and interstitials
  • Drive engagement around the show by encouraging conversation and increasing visibility with the ultimate goal of increasing the audience

Strategy

While the Fan Favorite contest was not a new concept, it was the first time that it would be powered using social media. Project Runway fans are passionate about the show and heavy users of social media, so this strategy is a natural fit. This strategy is an additional way to create engagement among loyal fans.

Lifetime widely promoted the contest throughout the season and integrated into content, on-air graphics, interstitials, promotions, and social media postings to ensure that viewers actively participated. Each designer was assigned a specific hashtag that would appear in lower-third graphics identifying them. Viewers voted using these hashtags on Twitter. Mass Relevance’s platform was able to meet the scale of the content coming in, categorize each submission as a vote for the designer, and deliver the results to the Fan Favorite site.

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Results

Lifetime’s Project Runway realized an increase in social buzz and viewer engagement over the span of the series.

  • #1 reality competition series on cable in key demographics (W18+ & W25-54).
  • The season premiere on July 28, 2011 ranked #1 for the night in social TV, beating all cable and broadcasting programming.
  • #1 program in social media activity (over 935k) for the week of season finale (10/24-10/30), beating all Cable and Broadcast programming including The X Factor, The Walking Dead, and Jersey Shore.
  • Most engaging cable TV series in the social media landscape, averaging 4.9 comments per unique user, more than the ratio for any other cable TV series during this timeframe (7/28-10/27).
  • #2 on Klout’s Top 10 Most Influential TV Shows.
  • Top 3 in social activity of all Thursday night primetime programs in ad-supported cable (7/28-10/27).
  • After episode four, voting for Fan Favorite increased every week through the final week (episode 13), with the final week seeing more than double the votes cast the preceding week.