We started out by looking at what makes the TV show so unique. The Crown is more than just another beautiful period piece. Instead, it offers an intimate, revealing portrait of one of the most famous women in the world.

Because of the need to maintain an incredibly strict public image, we have always been denied access to Her Majesty’s authentic private history. The truth is, we know very little about her.

The Crown, however, offers us a very different view. We see not just the monarch, but the woman, the wife, the mother, and the daughter.

Our idea: You know the Queen. Now meet Elizabeth.

To build curiosity around the show, we decided to give our audience a glimpse of who she really is: a real, multi-faceted individual. Someone with hopes and fears, quirks and oddities – just like the rest of us.

We began by researching all the curious, surprising, and intriguing details that make up the ‘real Elizabeth’. In doing so, we uncovered a wealth of facts that were both largely unknown, and highly enlightening.

For instance, the nickname given to her by her husband. Her favourite tipple. Her allergies. Her hobbies. The first thing she does after waking up in the morning.

We then took these facts and brought them to life in a variety of unorthodox ways. Each execution was built specifically for context. As well as existing media sites, we found (or created from scratch) media space on lift doors, coasters, Land Rovers, post boxes, gin bottles, supermarkets, home furnishing stores, and more. We even had our own band of roving corgi brand ambassadors drumming up new fans.

Over an intensive two-week period, our campaign rolled out at a host of different touchpoints right across the island.

Due to global client confidentiality, we are unable to reveal specific data on both viewership and subscriptions in Singapore during the campaign period.

During the campaign period, the monthly average number of Google searches for “The Crown” soared by 1700%.

Both the campaign and show earned over SGD560,000 in organic PR value, having been covered in 196 news reports in Singapore.

The campaign also earned over 372,000 organic Twitter impressions, with conversations reflecting genuine curiosity generated by our campaign. All mentions on social media were gained organically, and the vast majority of the tweets were overwhelmingly positive.

Our concept offers a fresh take on one of the oldest media available – outdoor – and shows how it can still be surprising and engaging in this day and age. It’s also an example of how creative and media can be successfully married together from the birth of an idea, all the way through to execution.

Our campaign features more than 30 different ambient and outdoor executions, with customised messaging and formats for different locations. In addition, many of the formats used were previously not available for advertising in Singapore.

Our target audience were Singaporeans aged 20-40, with a bias towards women.

Our concept and media strategy were married together from the beginning.

To generate the expansiveness we needed, we took advantage of Singapore’s unique demographics and geography. A tiny, densely populated island, Singapore is the perfect location for a ‘surround-sound’ outdoor approach. Using a mixture of large- and small-scale executions, we could reach out to a broad section of the population over a short period of time.

To ensure our campaign remained engaging, we explored new media formats that were not previously open to advertising, blurring the lines between ambient and traditional outdoor. Our concept focused on using the medium as the message, just as much as the content.

Over two months, we negotiated with media owners, landlords, retail chains and supermarkets to secure the rights to over 30 distinctive media placements.

The Crown is a Netflix original series, inspired by true events surrounding the life of Queen Elizabeth II.

Our brief was to promote the new series in Singapore and drive viewership in time for its global launch on November 4, 2016. While Netflix itself is a digital brand, at point of briefing we had no specific bias towards digital or any other media channel. Instead, the client tasked us to deliver a creative and media solution that would work seamlessly and effectively to achieve our goals.

Our core objective? To build curiosity and awareness of the show, as evidenced through measurable online behaviours. At the same time, we wanted to generate strong social media traction for both the brand and the series.