Discovery+

Turning Shark Week fans into hungry subscribers

How We Did It

Premium content

Leveraged premium Shark Week content to captivate viewers.

Interactive formats

Augmented reality (AR) engaged and inspired Shark Week fans.

Direct response

Drove users to discovery+ to become connected TV subscribers.

Shark Week ignites a curiosity within viewers. The ability to test new features and functionality such as AR for this campaign with Yahoo was a powerful way to engage with consumers in new ways.

Regina Sommese, Group Vice President, Paid Media, Global Subscriber Acquisition, discovery+

Background

Turning casual viewers into subscribers

Shark. Week. The two words together hardly need an introduction. They incite both eeriness and fascination within us all. After all, in Shark Week’s 34-year run, it’s hard to imagine anyone who hasn’t turned on a TV in July and witnessed a shark fin gliding across their screen. Shark Week is undoubtedly an event, so discovery+ saw this as the perfect opportunity to chum the waters for casual viewers and turn them into serious subscribers.

Solutions

Sharks on every screen

The discovery+ team leveraged Yahoo DSP to enact a hard-working programmatic media strategy focused on converting Shark Week fans to subscribers. Traditional video and static ads and high-impact formats like interactive Moments AR were combined, which let users bring sharks to life from their mobile device’s camera – in just one click.

Results

Making a huge splash

The allure of Shark Week’s compelling content, combined with exciting AR-enabled features and functionality, opened new ways to engage viewers and welcome them into the discovery+ family. Overall, the campaign saw 35K users enter the interactive experience, with an average dwell time of 44 seconds. This full-funnel approach resulted in an increase in brand KPIs like awareness and intent and also satisfied their primary goal: increased subscribers.

Source: Yahoo internal data, 2021.