Looking to build online buzz and target new eyeballs, Citytv launched a contest this week to find funny new people to promote its funny new shows.
Launched this week and running through Oct. 9, the contest invites viewers to make a minute-long video talking about any two of Citytv’s new comedies. The videos are then uploaded to Citytv.com, where they will be judged in-house. The winner of the contest, announced Oct. 19, gets a trip to a taping of The Jay Leno Show and the job of ‘official comedy correspondent,’ which involves talking about new shows on Citytv.com, Facebook and Twitter.
The goal of the contest was to get people watching the new fall comedy lineup – including The Jay Leno Show, How I Met Your Mother and Cougar Town – right out of the gate, and to find new ways to engage with viewers, Koreen Ott, director, marketing and PR for Rogers Media Television, tells MiC. ‘The challenge was, how do we promote every single one of these comedies beyond traditional forms of marketing, such as radio, newspaper and TV? This contest really allows you to ‘force-tune’ viewers right at the launch period, because in order to participate, you have to be watching.’
The contest is being promoted online at Citytv’s site, with five-second spots nationally on Citytv stations and through Citytv’s new Facebook page, launched yesterday. And although the contest broadly targets the 25-to-54 demographic, Ott says she hopes the nature of the contest will help reach new viewers as well as its existing audience.
‘One of the key things was to use the social media space to expand into where we potentially didn’t have viewers before…I want people who know Citytv to take part, but I really want to get new people that aren’t necessarily familiar with the programming on Citytv to take part.’
