Angry Birds Promotional Campaign
To keep viewers coming back, Kabillion is always updating and changing its content library. One of the biggest and most successful properties Kabillion acquired in 2020 was Angry Birds, and the company wanted to entice viewers new and old to watch the show. So, my team and I developed a marketing plan to do so.
Kabillion acquired Angry Birds in the summer and wanted to release it as quickly as possible. In order to do so, each episode needed a thumbnail and logline (or a short description for TV). I assisted with this, picking thumbnails and writing loglines for over 100 episodes. During this process, I had to watch each episode, so I became very familiar with each character.
After the basics were done, I got to work creating some video promotions for TikTok. The first was a very simple character introduction video, which displayed characters to a song that at the time was a popular TikTok trend. This video was meant to help introduce and announce the show’s presence on Kabillion.
Video Description: The video starts off with Red, the red Angry Bird, against a red background. At each drum beat, the character focus switches between Chuck, Bomb, and Terence, each with a matching background. Around 8 seconds, the drum beat changes to text that says “Angry Birds Now on Kabillion”.
The next video that was created was a combination promotion for both the TV series and Kabillion’s Summer Fun newsletter. One of the featured activities in this newsletter heavily involved the Angry Birds characters in a fun and exciting game, which I will explain shortly. This second video features a character from the activity flying by to promote the show on Kabillion. In the description, we included a link for viewers to sign up to the newsletter.
Video Description: Chuck, the yellow Angry Bird, is in the form of a paper plane against a blue sky. A hand holds the plane and passes it through the frame. Behind the bird, a message is revealed that says “Angry Birds Now on Kabillion”.
To further promote the show, each of the above videos was formatted and audio adjusted to fit Kabillion’s YouTube audience, and were subsequently posted on its channel.
To connect and reach Instagram and Facebook users, we created some GIF “stickers” and uploaded them to GIPHY. Kabillion has a GIPHY Brand Account, which means that any and all GIFs posted on their account can be used across a variety of social networks. In the cases of Instagram and Facebook, GIF stickers can be placed on stories and shared in chat. Each Angry Birds sticker that we created was linked to a dedicated Angry Birds page on the Kabillion website, so whenever a sticker was shared, their viewers could click on it and get more information. The GIFs immediately exploded in popularity, and even now, 7 months later, they are some of Kabillion’s most viewed and used GIFs, earning well in the millions of views on a monthly basis.
Image Description: An animated GIF of Red, the red Angry Bird, flying through the air with an angry face.
Image Description: An animated GIF of Chuck, the yellow Angry Bird, startled and panicking.
Image Description: An animated GIF of Bomb, the black Angry Bird, flying through the air while his face turns red and his feathers catch fire.
Image Description: An animated GIF of Terence, the large red Angry Bird, pushing himself into the ground.
As mentioned previously, we went even more interactive in the Kabillion Summer Fun newsletter. To get fans more familiar with the property, we designed a game called Stop Those Piggies! The game is ultimately simple: we created paper plane versions of Red and Chuck for players to print out and fold. We then created six Piggie cutouts for players to print, cut out, then tape to some Styrofoam (or other lightweight) cups. Players are to stack the Piggie cups in a pyramid, then use their paper plane Angry Birds to knock over as many cups as possible. From the feedback we received, a lot of fans loved the game!
Image Description: A paper plane version of Chuck, the yellow Angry Bird.
Image Description: A paper plane version of Red, the red Angry Bird.
Image Description: A paper has six Piggie cutouts and lists instructions on how to use them to play Stop Those Piggies!
As our final part of the push, the Kabillion video editor created a promotional advertisement for Kabillion’s video on demand and OTT audiences (OTT stands for over-the-top devices and includes platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, etc.) This promotion was added in-between breaks of series that had a similar audience, and was subsequently placed on YouTube.
The combined aspects and efforts of this marketing plan paid off immensely. From its launch in July of 2020, Angry Birds has continuously stayed in Kabillion’s top ten most viewed shows month after month. Thanks to this plan, the series had a huge starting success, and has kept fans interested and loving these birds.