Maintaining Attention: Three Aardman Campaigns that Kept Fans Hooked
Published on 14th October 2024By guest contributor - Katie McQuin Roberts, Aardman, Head of Social Media & Communities
At Aardman we use our social platforms to grow fan communities across the globe, keeping us in direct contact with our audiences and allowing us to promote our latest work. With audience tastes and social platforms constantly changing, our challenge is maintaining audience attention and encouraging fans to come back for more. Here are three recent campaigns where we’ve met that objective successfully…
Finding Fandom on New Platforms
After launching an Aardman TikTok channel at the start of 2023, we noticed a surge in the popularity of Creature Comforts on the platform. Although the series was created before the dawn of social media, the short, non-scripted format of animals talking about everyday, relatable topics was the perfect fit for grabbing the attention of a new generation of TikTok fans.
The love for this format was strengthened in 2024 when we created six new Creature Comforts-style films for the BBC's ‘Things We Love’ campaign, which provided an entertaining insight into the UK’s most loved BBC content, using voices from the general public. The campaign ran across TV, digital and social, receiving a fantastic response from audiences and high System1 scores across predicted long-term brand building, short-term impact and strength of branding.
With new platforms, fresh content and a renewed audience interest in Creature Comforts, we're excited to see what happens next!
Creative Collaborations
As a creative company, Aardman is very receptive to working with other like-minded brands, influencers and creators to reach a diverse range of audiences.
As she is a self-confessed Aardman fan, we were excited to be able to work with Amelia Dimoldenberg around the release of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.
Working with Amelia and the team at Netflix, Aardman created a bespoke episode of Chicken Shop Date complete with brand new animation, to go out on the YouTube channel to millions of subscribers.
While initially a show where people eat chicken may not have seemed an obvious fit for our brand, we were able to have some fun by subverting the theme, having the characters try and sabotage the shop and shut it down! Audiences were hooked in by this exciting and unexpected collaboration, helping us reach a whole new segment of potential Chicken Run fans, as well as providing a fresh creative style for Amelia's channel.
Keeping Traditional Brands Relevant to Modern Audiences
At the end of this year Aardman is due to release an eagerly awaited Wallace & Gromit film, Vengeance Most Fowl, the first one since A Matter of Loaf and Death in 2008! Back then, we were only just dipping our toes in the social media waters (who remembers Bebo?) and now digital platforms make up the majority of the trailer distribution network.
Our challenge has been to keep Wallace & Gromit relevant to modern audiences while maintaining the charm and tradition of the films. Thankfully the brand has a strong fandom, so we looked at what our audience was already enjoying. From memes and pop culture, to the emergence of superfan accounts (shout out to VeganLuke) we've embraced what the fans love and added our own Aardman twist. It seems to be working, with a recent tease of the return of Feathers McGraw becoming one of our most successful content pieces to date.
TLDR - Some Takeaways!
- Trying different social platforms can unlock new fandom from existing content.
- Don't be afraid to push the boundaries of your brand. Having strong values will guide how far you can go.
- The audience you had five years ago is not the same as the one you have today. People grow up, tastes and trends change, so content needs to keep evolving.
- Listening to your audience is key! Understand and embrace their interests to create meaningful, attention-grabbing content.
