3/16/16, 10:02 PMHow Fox Marketed Empire, One of the Biggest New Shows in Years | Adweek

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N othing takes the sting off a lackluster fall season like a big midseason hit. Andthat's exactly the situation Fox is in with its new show Empire, which after amonth on the air is the season's top series among 18-to 49-year-olds.

The hip-hop soap opera's Jan. 7 debut rated a 3.8, and in its second week jumped to a 4.This week's episode, the fourth, scored a 4.3 rating, with a total audience of 11.4 million.

Empire has connected powerfully with African-American viewers, who make up 61 percent

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Terrence Howard and Grace Gealey in Fox's Empire. Photo: Fox

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January 29, 2015, 10:49 PM EST Television

The strategy behind a breakout hitBy Jason Lynch

How Fox's Marketing Fanned the Flames ofEmpire, One of the Biggest New Shows inYears

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3/16/16, 10:02 PMHow Fox Marketed Empire, One of the Biggest New Shows in Years | Adweek

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of the audience. But the show's success wasn't random. It has been, in fact, the result ofFox's elaborate, months-long marketing campaign. "I've never seen anything like it," saidEmpire showrunner Ilene Chaiken, referring to the marketing strategy behind the series."It's been pretty thrilling."

The people behind the marketing, led by Fox COO Joe Earley, walked Adweek through howthey pulled it off—and how it's still evolving. Here's what they had to say:

Midseason's top priority

As incoming co-CEOs of Fox Television Group, Dana Walden and Gary Newman, tried topiece the network back together late last summer, they decided that Empire would be thefocus of its midseason efforts, just as they had centered on Gotham in the fall. "When theystarted, Dana and Gary immediately made it the No. 1 priority for midseason," Earley said."They authorized augmenting the marketing campaign because, honestly, it wasunderbudgeted. They said, 'It's too important; we have to do it right.' That allowed the reallycreative marketing team to do execution they couldn't have otherwise."

EMPIRE | Of*cial Trailer | FOX BROADCASTING

Market it to everyone in completely different ways

"This was a show for everyone, but we knew we were going to have to sell the show totargeted audiences," Earley said. And importantly, they needed to do so without using theterm "soap opera."

"It's a big, broad soap, but you don't sell a soap as a soap, though that's what we know that itis," he said.

Instead, they played up the family drama and the music aspects, and they targeted theAfrican-American and LGBT communities (one of the main characters is a gay singer), alongwith the fashion world. "There's even a little Sex in the City in Empire," Earley said.

"As we moved forward, everything we created had to fall into multiple buckets," said Earley,who crafted promos that would target audiences who liked scripted dramas, as well as onescentering around Taraji P. Henson's breakout character, Cookie, which would appeal to RealHousewives fans.

The result was a layered campaign that included print, radio, online, cable, broadcast andpartners like Fox Sports and FX. "Even our theatrical side, they put our trailer in front of

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3/16/16, 10:02 PMHow Fox Marketed Empire, One of the Biggest New Shows in Years | Adweek

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their word-of-mouth screenings for their movies," Earley said. "So everyone knew this was aworthwhile project."

The right key art and music are everything

For Walden, one of the most vital components of Empire's campaign was the key art,featuring a two-shot of stars Henson and Terrence Howard. "There were a lot of differentways to go," Walden said. "You could have gone with the family. You could have gone withhip-hop. Our decision was two Oscar-nominated actors. Visually that billboard was socaptivating, but it said three things: music, family, power. So you got the sense of what theshow was about, and you couldn't not look at it again and again."

And as they searched for the best music to promote a series about the music industry, theyultimately settled on a mixture of popular artists (including Kanye West) and an originalsong from the series, "No Apologies," which "was really hard because it's new music,"Walden said. "So you can't instantly create a tone with the music because people aren'tfamiliar with it."

EMPIRE | No Apologies

Pile on the tie-ins

Beyond its many on-air promos, Fox distributed gold Empire tote bags to Black Fridayshoppers in 10 malls across the country, and it targeted 450 barbershops and hair salons in10 markets with print ads and promotional items. The network commissioned an Adidasshoe from JBF Customs and created custom-made jewelry tied to the show.

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3/16/16, 10:02 PMHow Fox Marketed Empire, One of the Biggest New Shows in Years | Adweek

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Fox also courted male viewers by sponsoring the Manny Pacquaio-Chris Algieri pay-per-view boxing match on Nov. 22. "We've never done that before," Earley said. Fox alsoadvertised heavily during football games. The result: Empire's audience has been 37 percentmale.

Make one last premiere push

With Walden and Newman's approval, the Empire marketing campaign swelled to the samesize as Gotham's last fall (and Sleepy Hollow's the previous year), but it felt bigger thanthose, Earley said. They followed a two-week holiday lull with "a really intense media spendbetween New Year's and the premiere. That's why it felt like more," he said. "I would getemails from friends at other networks who would say, 'Can you please stop running Empireads?'"

Increased ratings, increased spending

When Earley saw Empire's debut ratings, "we increased our spend for week two," he said.That pattern repeated itself after the second week. "We all absolutely, 100 percent believed[ratings] would go down 20 percent because that's what new shows do," Earley said.Instead, ratings jumped 8 percent, which meant that the week three marketing spend wouldgo up as well. The same thing happened again this past week as the ratings jumped.

As word of mouth spreads, direct viewers to VOD

Earley doesn't think Empire's ratings increases are finished yet. "There is real opportunityfor this show to grow because there are still really large amounts of people who hopefully aregoing to catch up with it on [video on demand]," Earley said. They put video on demand(VOD) front and center in the promotion between episodes one and two. "If you saw anymessaging from us, it was: Catch up on the hit and watch the new episode because we knewthere would be really positive word of mouth," he said. "And I credit the growth from weekone to week two, not to the marketing campaign, but to word of mouth, to the show. So if wedid our part to get people to watch it, they talked about it."

The VOD push seems to have paid off: In its first seven days, the debut episode averaged 3.2million views across VOD, FOX Now and Hulu.

Make sure potential new viewers can watch the whole season

Often, when a freshman show takes off in the middle of its run, audiences are preventedfrom watching its first episode because of in-season agreements that restrict a network tostreaming only the most recent five episodes of a series. (The CW is struggling with thisissue with its Golden Globe-winning Jane the Virgin.) But Fox and 20th Century Fox made astacking agreement that will enable the network to stream all episodes.

"We thought stacking was imperative for Empire because it's hyperserialized, and I believeword of mouth will continue to spread," Earley said. "We were really concerned that atepisode six, if someone couldn't watch the pilot anymore, we wouldn't be able to keepdrawing audience.

"I think word of mouth is going to continue to spread even when it's off our air, and we'regoing to see a very healthy consumption of it digitally," he said.

Take advantage of social media (but not too much)

"Social has been huge," Earley said, citing the efforts of star Henson and her 3 million

3/16/16, 10:02 PMHow Fox Marketed Empire, One of the Biggest New Shows in Years | Adweek

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Twitter followers and 2 million Instagram followers. "On social, Taraji P. Henson is amaster. And it's genuine."

Praise from another television titan with a big following helped, too. Shonda Rhimestweeted shortly after the premiere, "So now I am all about Empire. ALL ABOUT #EMPIRE ,tweeples." Fox was giddy to have the endorsement of a major rival showrunner, but optednot to include it in the marketing. "Of course there was immediate discussion of 'How doyou take advantage of that and use that to do more?'" Earley said. "And I said, 'We need tobe nothing but respectful of that.' She did that on her own and she speaks to a very largeaudience."

Let viewers buy the music

With several new original songs each episode, the music is more integral to the series thanany Fox show since Glee. Replicating its successful Glee approach, Fox made Empire'smusic available on iTunes. "As is typical with television, sales of it started shooting up oncethe episodes aired," Earley said, who pointed to "Good Enough" and "No Apologies" as earlysuccesses. "And there are more hits coming. I think the music will probably be slowergrowing than Glee because Glee was covers, but you're going to see that these actors are alsoartists.

"They are going to have very, very healthy careers of their own," he said. "Yazz [BryshereGray, who plays Hakeem] already has his own career, and it's only going to keep going."

Help prop up American Idol

Fox also is working on ways to cross-promote Empire with its lead-in, American Idol. "I'mhoping that we will be seeing some Empire people on Idol," Earley said. "Empire will be offthe air before the live episodes of Idol start, but I still hope that we'll have some Empirepeople make a visit to Idol because the night is more compatible than is happening from aratings standpoint, right now." Indeed, while the network had expected to use AmericanIdol to boost Empire's ratings, it now has the reverse situation. Last week's Idol was a fullratings point below Empire. "So now what we need to do is figure out, how do we get thosepeople who are coming from Empire to realize how much fun there is in American Idol andgive them a whole night?"

Chaiken said there have been "informal talks" about Idol members guest-starring on Empire(though likely not this season, which is wrapping up shortly). "It's not an artificialcollaboration," she said. "It makes perfect sense in the world of the show, a world that we'retrying to make as real as possible."

Renew it early, let the binge watching begin, and merchandising

Walden and Newman's early renewal of Empire, which came after two episodes had aired,wasn't only to help the network turn the page on its disappointing fall. "It's also to send asignal to people that it's safe to watch. You don't have to stack 12 [episodes] and wait to seeif we bring it back," Earley said. "Go ahead and start watching now, and catch up wheneveryou can and get into the stream."

The quick renewal also let the consumer products team get an early start on merchandising."It allows you to look at what would the fans be interested in having in order to deepen theirrelationship with the show," Earley said. Such as? "Cookie's cookies, right? It does seem likea no-brainer. But I would leave that up to the consumer products people to think of."

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Topics: Broadcast, Empire, Fox, Ilene Chaiken, Networks, Ratings, Taraji P. Henson

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Tracy Hill • a year ago

No disrespect to the Fox marketing team intended, but they market every new Foxshow. The success of Empire has more to do with the fact that networks are finally

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3/16/16, 10:02 PMHow Fox Marketed Empire, One of the Biggest New Shows in Years | Adweek

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• Reply •

show. The success of Empire has more to do with the fact that networks are finallyrealizing that diversity can make them real money. Not doing the same old thing paysdividends. Same is true of Shonda and ABC's Thursday night.

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• Reply •

Sandra • a year ago> Tracy Hill

Totally agree. △ ▽

• Reply •

Josh • a year ago

Really, really nice article. Dope. Great insight into the process.

Two things, though. It doesn't include week 4's ratings and the gay son is a singer, not arapper.

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• Reply •

Jason Lynch • a year ago> Josh

Thanks Josh. Glad you enjoyed it. I fixed the Jamal info - slight brain freeze onmy part - and we clarified that those were indeed the week 4 ratings we werereferring to.

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• Reply •

Your Reward • a year ago

Empire is excellent. I haven't missed an episode. 3△ ▽

• Reply •

Guest • a year ago

I'm surprised you didn't mention that they synchronized the lights on the Empire StateBuilding with a song from the show that was broadcast on Power 105.1 in NY

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• Reply •

Mary Buford-Wooten • a year ago

First of all I think they are wrong about the demographics of what age group watch theshow. I am a viewer in my late fifties and I enjoy the show. I would not care what kind ofmarketing you use to get viewers I would of watched the show anyway. It is a soapinspired series with African Americans and the music business of today which has theirown drama. As far as reality shows go, I would rather see a soap opera night time seriesthan that mess they call reality television. And should not promote it as reality because itis drama

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• Reply •

Damien Servoz • a year ago

Meanwhile in Canada, only the last 2 episodes are available for streaming on the CityTVnetwork's app...

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• Reply •

Diana Lopez • a year ago

Already Stream Empire Episode 1-5 VIDEO STREAM -- > http://x.co/7kkRQ

Already Stream Empire Episode 1-5 VIDEO STREAM -- > http://x.co/7kkRQ

Already Stream Empire Episode 1-5 VIDEO STREAM -- > http://x.co/7kkRQ △ ▽

J S • a year ago

As far as nighttime soaps go, Empire feels more like a throwback to the cheesy likes ofthe original Dallas and Dynasty, just replacing the oil industry backdrop with the hip hopmusic industry. Kudos to FOX though for placing an all black soap on the network, evenit is of very marginal dramatic quality. Thanks for Adweek for giving readers a look

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• Reply •

behind the marketing curtain. Old fashioned targeted marketing can pay huge dividents,being even more critical when the limited niche appeal of hip hop music is the basis fora broadcast network with a broad mass audience. Know thy audience and sell to them. Iremember when ABC launched an aggressive and targeted campaign prior to the launchof Desperate Housewives, going as far as printing pictures of the housewives on drycleaner bags, one of the most mundane items practically any housewife could relate to.It was very clever and felt very fresh. FOX desperately needs Empire to succeedespecially since Gotham seems to have lost all or most of its mojo at its midway point inits premiere season and last year's hit, Sleepy Hollow has declined badly intocancellation territory in its second season. Hopefully, the trashy soap genre will havemore staying power for FOX.

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