The challenge

This campaign defies normal conventions of a marketing goal for a single brand. It’s about collaboration between different brands and media owners for mutual benefit.

The players in this ad-funded, interactive, online and portable audio-visual drama include the government, Sony, Channel 4, MTV and 3.

They all hitched a ride on a plan to develop a show designed to capture the spirit and creativity of a new generation of UK music artists and the urban culture that spawned their music. And the key goal was to communicate an anti-drug message to a traditionally hard to reach section of society.

The TV solution
The result of this collaboration was Dubplate Drama, an innovative six-part, interactive, 11-minute-long TV show that mixed cutting-edge R ‘n B with the latest in entertainment technology.

The story follows an aspiring young female rapper from an inner city estate and her ambitions to make it big. Using MTV-style cinematography it follows her journey from pirate radio stations to the cusp of stardom.

Each episode concluded with a moral dilemma and a multiple choice for the heroine Dionne. Should she hide a gun, save her cousin from a beating or make her debut performance, for example:

The viewers decide the outcome by voting online, text message or video blogging. And the next week’s episode was filmed based on their decision.
The show was supported by some of the biggest names in UK urban music with Ms Dynamite and Kele Le Roc participating while Dionne was played by upcoming star Shystie.

Woven into the story was an anti-drugs agenda backed up by Talk to Frank, the government’s drugs advisory service, and marketing material was targeted at a youth audience via comic books showing drug related dilemmas combined with exclusive CDs, flyers distributed outside nightclubs and in record shops.

Viewers who interacted with the show were also directed to the Frank website and received text-backs with a helpline number.

A key part of the collaboration involved the media platforms the show was available on. The full 11-minute episode was premiered each week on Sony PSP Handsets, with a three-minute cut-down version becoming available for 3 Mobile subscribers the next day.

The same day as the 3 “broadcast” Channel 4 was the first TV broadcaster, with MTV base following on the next day and further repeats running on MTV E4 and E4+1 during the week. Archived episodes were available via www.dubplatedrama.tv where further character profiles, music downloads and chat forums were also available.
Extra bespoke material was also made available to broadcast partners each week.

Results

The series attracted a strong audience and on the opening weekend a broadcast on C4 achieved the same ratings as the T4 flagship show. Peak viewership was 400,000.

Demand for this content was so strong that PSP’s system crashed twice due to the level of downloads. On average there were 5,000 downloads a week over the six week series.

Talk to Frank have not released any data on response levels but are talking about participating in the second series, while 3 recouped 10% of their investment from download revenue.

“TV enabled the campaign to appear in a credible and relevant context and did not feel like a campaign but rather the TV drama series it was perceived as. This credible final delivery was reached by securing high profile figures from the music and acting arenas for cameo appearances as well as the overall gritty style of the production.” Sam, Conniff, co-founder of Livity and executive producer of Dubplate Drama