Title	HUMANS SERIES 2
Brand	CHANNEL 4
Product/Service	HUMANS SERIES 2
Category	B10. Use of Digital Platforms
Entrant	OMD UK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	OMD UK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation 2	CHANNEL 4 London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation 3	4CREATIVE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Placement	OMD UK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	4CREATIVE London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
David Josephs	OMD UK	Managing Director
Claire Dean	OMD UK	Deputy Head of Strategy
Joseph Cartlidge	OMD UK	Digital Director
Hannah Gething	OMD UK	Head of Cinema & Investment
Rachel Walton	OMD UK	Associate Director
Hasmita Vejanand	OMD UK	Social Planner
Dan Brooke	Channel 4	Chief Marketing and Communications Officer
James Walker	Channel 4	Head of Marketing
Laura Ward	Channel 4	Deputy head of Marketing
Michelle Owusu-Aninakwah	Channel 4	Marketing Manager
Marcus Chamberlain	Channel 4	Marketing Manager
Laura Woodcock	Channel 4	Marketing Executive
James Smart	Channel 4	Social Media Manager
Chris Bovill	4Creative	Executive Creative Director
John Allison	4Creative	Executive Creative Director
Clare Brown	4Creative	Head of Production
Jim Chambers	4Creative	Senior Art Director
Tom Espezel-Bentley	4Creative	Creative
Nina Beyers	4Creative	Creative
Alex Boutell	4Creative	Creative Director
Tom Foster	4Creative	Senior Account Director
Christos Savvides	4Creative	Senior Digital Producer
Madeleine Smith	4Creative	Digital Producer

The Campaign

The Series 1 storyline had been focused on “synths”, synthetic humans designed to serve humans. The key concept of the second series was that the synths were now malfunctioning and gaining consciousness. We needed to take this storyline and create an idea that would be clever, provocative and would attract just as much interest as the Series 1 idea. Our campaign idea involved reintroducing consumers to the fictional brand from the show Persona Synthetics. This time Persona Synthetics were launching a product recall campaign to alert customers that their synths may be malfunctioning. It was the perfect campaign idea to bring the narrative of Series 2 to life, without giving it away, and continue the successful narrative from Series 1, picking up where we’d left off with our super fans.

Creative Execution

First we needed to alert people of the safety message using high reach announcement media: we launched our product recall announcements across national press, on Channel 4’s TV network and across the Persona Synthetic branded social pages. All of these touchpoints directed viewers to our product recall hub. In a European entertainment first, we programmed an AI-powered Facebook Messenger chat bot to give viewers the chance to interact in real time with a Synthetic Human customer care advisor. Over 700 lines of dialogue were scripted by the writers of the show at Kudos to make the experience as authentic to the show as possible. We partnered with eBay to launch a product recall page, complete with disgruntled online synth reviews.

• The Facebook Messenger Bot delivered an astounding 5.1m interactions with a large uplift in tracked ad recall • Personasynthetics.com had over 500k visits within the first 2 weeks • Plus, there was a huge volume of earned media - #Humans trended on Twitter on the day of launch and there were 46,000+ tweets carrying our hashtag in the first 30 days of the campaign • Our Snapchat filter drove a massive 4.2m impressions and 8.5million plays This culminated in the second series having the highest awareness of any drama since 2008 and being the best performing original returning drama since 2011 – bringing the audience closer to the world of Humans than ever before.

To launch the second series of Humans, Channel 4’s highest rating UK originated drama launch of all time, we created an almighty product recall campaign. From an Artificial Intelligence powered Facebook Messenger chat bot that allowed viewers to interact in real-time with a customer care advisor to a product recall safety page on eBay complete with reviews from disgruntled customers, we acted in every way like a real brand.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

This concept immediately redirected our media behaviour from that of a TV show launch: we needed to behave like a brand doing a product recall campaign by using all of the channels they would normally use which demanded an integrated approach. The product recall strategy delivered integration across publishers and platforms, interlinking multiple touchpoints to maximise reach and engagement. Our online partnerships with Facebook Messenger, eBay and New Scientist added a playful credibility towards the product recall concept. Our product recall press ads and fleet of recall lorries extended reach and added curiosity to the campaign.