Fans of the Sherlock series are accustomed to seeing their hero triumph. But when we read the scripts for series 4, we spotted an opportunity. This time Sherlock was vulnerable and everything hung in the balance. Our research into fan communities also told us that speculation was rife that this would be the series finale. With these heightened stakes, we saw this as an opportunity to emotionally engage our viewers like never before.

This insight led to our powerful creative idea - ‘It’s not a game anymore’.

We decided to take a darker tone that was a clear departure from previous series and made the concept of ‘game play’ central to how we engaged our audiences across every phase and platform of this global 360 campaign.

Sherlock “It’s Not a Game Anymore”, was a global multi-platform campaign, phased over two months, and translated seamlessly across: UK, Africa, Asia, America, Poland, Benelux, Northern Europe and Australia. Our campaign timeline was carefully plotted, kicking off with our launch trailer at San Diego Comic-Con.

From there, we strategically released content across all platforms, exploiting social spaces to send the Sherlock rumour mill into meltdown and building anticipation for the new series. We partnered with Amazon in the US, and did a platform takeover - even making shopping a game. We were the first brand to ever do this. We also incorporated exclusive Sherlock ‘Miss Me’ social filters and staged PR stunts such as the birth announcement of the Watson’s baby in national press

We continued teasing fans throughout the series, releasing more content that played with audience’s expectations, dropping hints about plot developments as the series progressed.

Comic-Con trailer:

• 110 million social impressions

• Reached 48 million users on Sherlock social channels alone

• 32 million organic views

Campaign overall:

• 514 million social impressions

• 15 million social engagements

• 5,000 pieces of global press coverage

• £36 million worth of non-paid media

Sherlock Series 4 success:

• Peak UK audience of 11.3 million viewers (the biggest over the festive period, and the most-watched drama in the last 12 months).

• Reached 12.1 million viewers in the US. Average audience up 55% on PBS’s timeslot average

• China – Youku’s best performing drama in 2016 and 2017, based on total video views (56 million).

• Trended #1 on Twitter around the world.