CBS partnered with Classmates.com (a reunion site) to build anticipation for The Class. The partnership gave CBS access to Classmates.com’s 60 million members through multiple emails and creation of a custom community. Most impactfully, CBS took advantage of Classmates.com’s prolific online banner advertising. Based on the insight that Classmates.com is a top ten advertiser online and is ubiquitous to the target, the characters of The Class were inserted into the famous yearbook style Classmates.com banner ads that are truly unavoidable.

The Class recorded CBS’s best premiere performance in its day and timeslot since 2004 among the target demo of adults 18-34 and since 2003 for adults 25-54. The placement of The Class’ characters in Classmates.com’s banner ads enabled CBS to increase their online impressions beyond the budgets for any traditional television show launch.