Prime TV: Scandal In Suburbia

Name	Position	Company
James Mok	Creative Director	DRAFTFCB New Zealand
Rachel Leyland	Senior Planner / Buyer	DRAFTFCB New Zealand
Chris Schofield	Copywriter	DRAFTFCB New Zealand
Billy McQueen	Art Director	DRAFTFCB New Zealand
Candice Moselen	Media Buyer	DRAFTFCB New Zealand
Fleur Head	Group Account Manager	DRAFTFCB New Zealand
Chrytal Peterson	Senior Account Manager	DRAFTFCB New Zealand

Our core strategy was a focus in and around suburbanite homes to foster scandal within small communities and encourage people to change the channel in their living rooms. The Weeds 'house for sale' parody was set up in an Auckland community: 1. Letterbox mailers were placed within a defined geographical radius to invite people to visit the house. 2. Website property listings and property magazines were utilized to promote the "open home" - a media first for a non-registered real estate advertiser and an opportunity to amplify the effect of the open home amongst a broader suburban audience. 3. Signage outside the house itself was used to invite visitors to experience the house first hand. 4. Local Community free-newspapers delivered 'the other side of suburbia' messages directly into suburbanite letterboxes and homes. 5. Placement in gossip sections of the more leisurely read suburban magazines were designed to stimulate further discussion.

The creative idea was directly related to the storyline, 'what lies beneath the veneer of a white picket fence in suburbia'; or, 'the other side of suburbia'. Courting controversy, the creative executions included a series of contentious content designed to stimulate discussion and debate. The primary creative included: Setting up an actual home for sale in a key community suburb, which was copied directly out of the plot line of the TV programme. It parodied a real home for sale and featured a hydroponics rooms with fake marijuana plants and hash cookies. Additional half page and full page press ads were used to promote the sale of the home; ads in TV listings sections directed viewers to specific viewing times and billboard creative featured TV programme awareness executions.

The primary opportunity was reaching young suburbanite women, living in smaller communities surrounding our main city centres. Research post Series 1 identified this target to be naturally attracted to the Programme and its plot lines: a single mom resorts to selling marijuana to support her family in an 'oh so nice' Californian suburb. The small communities of NZ also have a gossip culture - people enjoying nothing more than a juicy story to share with their friends: about a neighbour, a friend, a celebrity or topical news. It's all fair game and part of the social fabric of suburbia in NZ. These women were also more frequent TV viewers and hence represented the most potent opportunity for increased viewing on Prime TV. By melding the Programme content and our core target, our ultimate battle with this audience was focused in their living rooms - changing their behaviour to change the channel.

Our open home sparked outrage on blogs, in local press, and daily newspapers. Launch night audience share was up 617% week on week. Across the Weeds series, the overall peak time audience share increased by 20% and the show achieved its highest weekly audience share for 2007.