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Ed. note: This case study is a selection from the
2012 “Justified”
competition, in which an esteemed jury
identified submissions that demonstrate the value of design in a clear,
compelling and accessible way. It serves as an example of how to explain design
thinking to clients, students, peers and the public in general, based on
specific metrics.
In concert with the network’s ongoing research on the comedy viewer and
the ever-changing ways they access their comedy, the assignment was to
reengage and reaffirm the already-strong Comedy Central brand for a new
generation of viewers: Gen Y/Millennials. The objective was to critique every aspect of our brand—in terms of
editorial, design, voice and even our workflow—and to use that
information to connect on a more personal level with our audience.
We invited six companies and three internal teams to pitch their concepts for
this challenge. Although there was a lot of great work presented, we
were incredibly inspired by the pitches from The Lab and our internal
teams: The Lab for their fresh and challenging perspective on our brand,
their design and their strategies, and the internal teams for
capturing the heart and soul of our brand, our comedic sensibility and
our editorial voice.
Budget
Undisclosed, but less than you’d imagine
Research
Research was key to this reengagement. It was at the core of this
project. Our core audience, persons aged 18 to 34, has changed dramatically over the years in
terms of how they view content, but also in terms of their sense of
humor. The reality check that research offered our brand was a critical
influence in where we took our brand, and it continues to influence our path
forward.
Most importantly, this is not about pandering to our audience; it is
about celebrating our content the way that our audience would. It is about
establishing a rapport with our audience that is less about selling the
next big thing and more about celebrating why we find it funny and worth
their time.
All said, our new direction has been well-received, by our audience
and across the company. It has been a challenge that all parties
are able to understand and get behind, and its success is dependent
upon our staying committed to talking to our audience, not at them.
Challenges
This project was much more than a redesign. It was a reimagining of
every way we connect with our audience. Although spearheaded by the Comedy
Central brand creative team, the project involved almost every department
within CC, including on-air and off-air promotions, digital, marketing, talent, programming, program scheduling, ad sales and, of course, research—lots of time with research. From this introspection, we developed four key challenges for this
project to address:
The Competition. Our viewers get their entertainment and content from an
ever-growing array of sources. The TV landscape is growing more and more
competitive. The reality is that our viewers can get their comedy and
entertainment fix from digital content across the internet, from sites like
YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, the Huffington Post, iTunes, etc., along with game
systems and social platforms.
Programming. We no longer live in a world of appointment viewing—with a
few exceptions. For the most part, DVRs and the proliferation of “content everywhere” have redefined our audiences’ viewing patterns and challenged our ratings and ad models. Two examples include our
ability to skip all commercials and network promos, and waiting
for clips to be available online.
Consumer Perception. One of our biggest challenges, as a brand, is
getting credit for all of the great content we have. Clips from our
shows are available everywhere, from last night’s best “Daily Show” clip
on the Huffington Post, to the latest web redemption from Tosh.0 shared
across Twitter and Facebook. Our content is everywhere our audience is—but how do we more effectively brand it as Comedy Central original
content, especially when it is being viewed on other well-branded sites?
New Technologies. Although this challenge is seen in the last three
examples, it is the biggest acknowledgement that the evolution of
television and the internet is not slowing down. As a brand, we have to
shift from a reactive stance to a forward-thinking strategy.
These four challenges are not unique to Comedy Central, but they represent a
more rounded description of what we have explored in our reengagement
project.
Strategy
The core strategy of our reengagement was to stop thinking of Comedy
Central as a TV channel. Comedy Central is a comedy brand that is platform-agnostic. Whether you get our content on TV, on the web, on your phone, on iTunes and Netflix or on the next great device, we are dedicated to bringing our content to you wherever you need a laugh. Our redesign was grounded in this principle. The design is clean and simple, and it scales well to any device.
It should also be noted that going into this project, there was no
direction to change our logo. But as we began to commit to this new
direction, it became clear that the old logo was holding us back. The
old globe logo served us well, but it was too complicated—and too
loaded with old references—for such a forward-looking effort. We decided to develop a new logo and logo system that would give
us a range of branding tools to be used as needed across any
application. The new logo was rooted in what we’ve come to call the
Comedy Mark: two interconnected C’s that play off of the simple
authority of the copyright symbol (©). While this mark works in a variety of
combinations with Comedy Central spelled out, it works best on its own,
when it is used to stamp a funny moment in a clip or image. It has
become our stamp of approval.
Another strategy of our redesign and reengagement was to rethink how
our network design and our content interacted. In our old style, the
network look would be tailored to each promotion’s creative direction.
This made for some fun challenges along the way, but it didn’t serve our
brand in establishing a clear, consistent presence. Our new direction
established some clear boundaries and a focus on owning our content—on stamping our content with our mark of approval. Our aim was to develop a
look and feel that would translate across any and every platform. Although this look can seem simple and dry, it does so intentionally, so as
to not step on the comedy content. The look and the logo don’t need to
be funny. Fun, yes—but not goofy or funny in their own right.
Lastly, but most importantly, our new direction was based on the notion
of talking to our audience, not at them. In our critique, it became
clear that we were yelling at our audience—just another commercial
spewing its sales pitch. But we knew we could be better than that. As
true fans of what we were sharing with our audience, we knew that it
wasn’t about a hard sell. It was about sharing with them what we felt
was worth their time—what we found funny, or ridiculous, or at least
worth checking out. It was the realization that, as Comedy Central, we
had the unique opportunity to have a lot of fun with our content and
with our audience.
Here is a presentation reel, to show some of this in context.
Effectiveness
After our first full year of embracing our reengagement and redesign, we
continue to be excited about and confident in our new direction. Our promotions continue to strive to talk to our audience, not at
them, and our promotions staff is charged with creating fun and exciting
content that truly celebrates the unique fun of our content and our
brand. More than lip service, this new philosophy challenges each of us, every
day, to ensure that we, as fans of Comedy Central, are working to
celebrate what we have to offer our audience.
The results include a staff that is more empowered to challenge the
status quo, and an on-air voice that is dedicated to talking to our
audience, not at them. This is an ongoing and never-ending challenge, and we have set a rather
high bar, but we continue to implement our new branding strategies, logo and branding system. We continue to challenge ourselves to
reach our audience as we would want to be reached—as fans. In its simplicity, our new look and feel has proven to be versatile and
effective across every platform, while still allowing us enough
flexibility to tailor our design and animation to each and every
campaign.
We couldn’t be happier with our new direction, but we have a lot to live
up to. In challenging ourselves to rethink everything, we also
challenged ourselves to continue to critique all that we do. Our success
depends on it. In terms of the categories of effectiveness:
Economy: The new design direction is incredibly efficient compared to
our old approach of developing unique design solutions for each project.
People: As described, we have a renewed focus on how our brand relates
to our audience. It is about connecting with our fans, as fans. It is
dedicated to talking to our audience, not at them. This design
direction has given us the perfect toolset for this challenge.
Environment: As most of our promotions are on-air and digital, we have a
more healthy environmental footprint, although this has been driven more
by budgets than by a direct benefit from our new design. However, if the
concept was funny enough and connected with our audience in the right
way, we wouldn’t hesitate to embrace whatever method would best suit our
message.
Culture: Time will tell, but so far, our audience has noticed the
difference. Our tone has shifted, our message is clearer and we
continue to ensure that our content is everywhere our audience would like it to be.
Our ultimate measure of promotional success is that we create promos
that are worth sharing in their own right. Since our reengagement, we
have had a number of promos that have done just that—crazy-fun promos
that got the word out, but, at the same time, became sharable content.
All said, we have only just begun, but we are off to a good start. This project has been a great challenge across our company and we hope
to continue to live up to our potential as the favorite comedy brand for
our audience.
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