The Quack is Back

A reality TV show that tells the story of a quirky family in Louisiana is approaching Jersey Shore TV ratings? Tell me more.

Image from Yahoo! TV

According to AdAge columnist Jeanine Poggi, on Wednesday, February 27^th, 2013, 8.6 million viewers tuned in at 10/9C to watch the new hit series on A&E, Duck Dynasty. However, this season 3 premier went above and beyond an ordinary TV viewing. In the Duck Dynasty social response lab, analysts were working day and night to engage their audience.

What does this mean? And how did they do that? Great questions. Viewers can watch television through Netflix, Hulu, and DVR (just to name a few options). To counter-act the “I can always watch it later” attitudes of viewers, the social response lab implemented real-time marketing, specifically through the use of Twitter.

By using Twitter to hype up the audience for the season 3 premier, A&E social media managers and strategists engaged their current fans and created a buzz that enticed new viewers to tune in. Essentially, it was all about “in-the-moment” conversations.

The Twitter conversation began hours before the show’s start time. Fans were sending in pictures of themselves in camouflage headbands and fake beards (great material for A&E to use in the future). At 5 pm, A&E began re-tweeting awaiting fans causing even more of a ruckus, and by 6 pm, the Robertson family (the TV starts themselves!) even joined the conversation!

Before the premier, Duck Dynasty had surpassed American Idol mentions on Twitter.  During the show, the tweeting continued. Tweeting was turned into a game and the fans that responded first received a prize. For example, every time Si made a “Hey” reference, the first fan to tweet #Jack was the lucky winner. This occurred often. If you are not familiar with this “Hey,” check out this video! It is good for a laugh or two.

Things started to really heat up when actor James Franco and singer Phillip Phillips started tweeting about Duck Dynasty.

All of the articles we have been reading about customer engagement in Professor Mac’s class, well, it looks like A&E has been reading them too. The fans ate it up. The social media success further reinforces that it is about the experience. Every time their Twitter name scrolls across the bottom of the screen, customers (television viewers) feel a connection to the Duck Dynasty brand. This created a sense of loyalty, and next Wednesday, both long-time and new Duck Dynasty fans will tune in to see episode 2.

What I am trying to convey is that an experience with a product goes far beyond tangible consumer goods. Despite Duck Dynasty being an entertaining show, the viewer engagement really gives them the upper hand. I’m curious to see if the viewer statistics are upheld next week.

For now, Duck Dynasty has claimed the title of “A&E’s most watched telecast of all time.”

And A&E is “Happy, Happy, Happy”

This blog post is a part of Integrated Marketing Communications at Elon University

Source: Inside the Social-Response Lab of A&E’s ‘Duck Dynasty’