Bringing Zog and the Flying Doctors to the small screen

On Christmas Day every year Magic Light releases a new animation production with a prime-time spot on BBC One. Their collection is award-winning features animations such as The Highway Rat, The Gruffalo, Stick Man, and Room on the Broom.

With such a high-profile roster of films comes big expectations each year. Zog is a fan favourite and Magic Light decided to run a second installment based on the 2016 book ‘Zog and the Flying Doctors’.

It was one of the high points on Magic Light’s social calendar so our team began dropping clues throughout the year or what the 2020 animation would be. In 13 posts, we spelled out flying doctors presenting a theme behind each letter that was linked to the brand. When the new production was announced the hint was revealed, helping draw a cheeky sentiment to the page from users who had been following along.

Now the post was released, we needed to think about how we were going to boost towards the outside world.

We optimised through different objectives, firstly for engagement on Facebook. The post achieved over 7K engagements with a cost per performance of less than 5p! Those numbers combined with the organic post means we have over 14K post reactions, and close to 6.5K comments along with over £3K shares. The sentiment on the post has been almost universally positive, building positive awareness ahead of the films TX on Christmas Day.

Next, our approach moved to brand building with page likes ads, moving from the film’s announcement to reminding fans of the complete Magic Light collection to build our community. The ad has already driven over 1.3K page likes and is running a cost of under 26p per like, way below the industry average (of 60p). The most responsive demographic for this ad has been 35-44 women who have made up 63% of the new page likes.

Finally, we pivoted to Instagram to drive profile visits with a small but highly targeted media spend, bringing over 1K new followers to the page. This allowed the page to surpass the 10,000 follower mark (currently over 10.5K followers). The ad brought in over 5K link clicks to the profile ensuring we delivered a staggering 21% return on investment for new followers.

The channel also understands the importance of community management and when the post did go live to join in the engagement and help build the sentiment of the channel. For example, one user stated Zog and the Flying Doctors was ‘The best news of 2020’, to which our own Flossie replied ‘There’s light at the end of the tunnel’. This tone is so important to build an understanding with your fans as this resonates the most and will get the best reaction.

The launch has been a success and has been a testament to how organic and paid should work together. It’s also a lesson if you approach and are open to different formats of promotion. You’ll be able to learn more and develop a more consistent and productive strategy.

Alex Ward – Paid Media Executive