<\/p>\n
Talk about champagne problems: Your highly touted television series, based on very popular source material, premieres to big ratings, fan adoration and a second season renewal. Now, you need to ensure the show\u2019s trajectory keeps rising. How do you avoid the dreaded \u201csophomore slump\u201d?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where the marketing team comes in. But in our fragmented digital media ecosystem, spreading the word about your Season 2 premiere date is not enough. Indeed, there\u2019s much time, effort and money spent on molding a show\u2019s return into the kind of must-see event that will draw viewers old and new.<\/p>\n
Two streaming titles, both in the action\/fantasy genre, recently pulled back the curtain for The Envelope, detailing their sophomore marketing strategies. The first, \u201cPercy Jackson and the Olympians,\u201d<\/a> which returned to Disney+ on Dec. 10, follows the adventures of the titular son of Poseidon and demigod (Walker Scobell) from co-creator and executive producer Rick Riordan\u2019s book series. The second, Netflix\u2019s \u201cOne Piece,\u201d<\/a> which returns March 10, follows the ragtag Straw Hat Pirates of executive producer Eiichiro Oda\u2019s manga series as they pursue the valuable One Piece treasure.<\/p>\n For both, the logistical intricacies of casting announcements, trailers and key art are important \u2014 but they\u2019re nothing without the attention of each show\u2019s very active and powerful fandom.<\/p>\n \u201cYou go in knowing that \u2018One Piece\u2019 is the number one manga in Japan, but just how meaningful that is to fans is always something that is so inspiring,\u201d says Jonathan Helfgot, Netflix\u2019s vice president of marketing, U.S. and Canada. \u201cSeeing how fans responded to the characters and the execution of these characters that they\u2019ve loved for so long was wonderful to see and something we knew we had to bridge between Season 1 and 2. We knew that keeping those characters alive in their lives was going to be so important.\u201d<\/p>\n Remaining relevant in the offseason has become an even greater challenge in the era of extended hiatuses between seasons airing. \u201cPercy\u201d had 23 months between its Season 1 finale in January 2024 and last month\u2019s Season 2 premiere. The gap is even wider for \u201cOne Piece\u201d as more than two and a half years will have passed by the time new episodes drop. Blame the 2023 Hollywood strikes along with the reality that big fantasy projects take considerably more time to shoot given the elaborate sets, costumes and special effects required.<\/p>\n As such, both streamers\u2019 marketing teams employ an \u201calways-on\u201d approach to engagement with fans. In \u201cPercy\u2019s\u201d case, \u201cThis is, as you can imagine, a hyper-engaged, rabid fan base on social and we\u2019re tapping into them routinely and making sure we\u2019re continuing that dialogue. We then want to make sure we\u2019re honoring them with what we are delivering from a campaign perspective,\u201d says Erin Weir, executive vice president, marketing for ABC and Disney Entertainment Television.<\/p>\n