Denmark’s largest news site turned into a home cinema
It is common that in times of crises new business and marketing ideas are born. That’s what happened when HBO Nordic and Denmark’s biggest news website Ekstra Bladet decided to join forces during the lockdown for the launch of a new TV series.
For most people, the past year has been challenging, and the same applies to brands that have been forced to explore new ways to connect to their audiences and adapt to changing consumer behavioural patterns.
Among others, the pandemic created a major upheaval in the entertainment industry. While searching for innovative ways to release its new content, HBO Nordic decided to reach out to Ekstra Bladet last autumn, asking for a little bit of help.
A gamble that paid off
“While most of the entertainment industry was hurting during the lockdown, traffic on Ekstra Bladet was booming – and that gave us an idea: Why not turn Denmark’s largest news site into Denmark’s largest cinema,”Joen Jay Dahl, Native Specialist at Ekstra Bladet Native, wrote in a blog post.
The gamble was to launch HBO Nordic’s mini-series Beartown through Ekstra Bladet.
Dahl explains that to meet the goal of gaining critical mass exposure nationwide, the partnership had to achieve an innovative but effective exposure for the release of the new HBO Nordic series, to create relevance, awareness and interest for Beartown, to recruit live viewers and later viewers for Beartown, and to get a positive vibe around the HBO Nordic brand.
The gamble paid off, with the campaign reaching more than 2 million Danes in the one-week span. These results satisfied HBO Nordic as well as its media agency, dentsu x: “The launch of Beartown required a combination of wide reach and a creative approach,” said Jonas Qwuist, integrated business director at dentsu x.
The success of the project has sparked ambitions, with the companies now looking into creative ways to replicate the lockdown cinema campaign.
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