Just a few days before the debut of its latest series, Nurse Jackie, Showtime set up a three-day interactive promotional stunt at high-traffic spots in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. But instead of moving the relatively modest installation from market to market, Showtime erected three separate pop-up billboards simultaneously.
Overseen by Showtime director of promotions and partnerships Larry Kieran, the project had three goals: In addition to making potential viewers aware of the new show, the network was particularly keen to reach out to medical professionals and bring more consumers to its Web site. So in the weeks before the stunt, marketers made a big push to target the nursing community online. According to Kieran, several thousand men and women were directed to the Nurse Jackie page, where they could use a Twitter application to voice their thoughts about their jobs, health care in the United States, and what they thought of the show's pilot episode—all in 140 characters or fewer, of course. One Source Visual Marketing Solutions was charged with incorporating the responses into the stunt.
One Source has previously partnered with Showtime to disguise the facade of the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers as an English castle to promote The Tudors, so the group's printed graphics covered much of the installations. The company also incorporated the thousands of responses Showtime received on its Web site by streaming them across large screens on each of the billboards in between preview clips of the series and invitations for pedestrians to visit the Web site and contribute thoughts of their own.
Street teams surrounding each of the installations gave out iTunes gift cards with instructions on how to find a free preview of the series and told passersby that for every Twitter post made on the Nurse Jackie Web site, the network would donate $1 to charity.
The network had an unexpected rationale behind its decision to create a presence in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York—where the stunts took place at Navy Pier, the Hollywood and Highland Center, and General Motors Plaza, respectively. The three markets are the most highly populated metropolitan areas in the United States and have the highest concentrations of Showtime subscribers, but they're also the three biggest cities for hospitals and medical facilities—and Showtime was adamant about targeting the campaign at actual nurses.
Showtime's success with the stunt and the series as a whole won't be clear for at least a couple of weeks, but the network is confident enough to include Nurse Jackie in its planning for another experiential endeavour later this year. The network's partnership with Metropolitan Home for the magazine's annual show house will see its second outing in late summer or early autumn in New York. Two Nurse Jackie-themed rooms are already in the works.
