Bravo is changing its look and readying its biggest marketing campaign since NBC acquired the network two years ago.
A multiplatform media blitz kicks off Jan. 3, aimed at not only boosting the third-season premiere of hit series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy Jan. 11, but the Jan. 12 series debut of spinoff Queer Eye for the Straight Girl. The ads blare, “Twice as queer … two nights straight.”
In conjunction with spots for the Queer Eye franchise and other programs, Bravo will also break a branding campaign that includes a new logo featuring the Bravo brand inside a cartoon-style talk-box. The logo comes replete with a new tagline: “Bravo -- watch what happens.”
“We need to bring a lot of eyeballs to the channel because it’s a very, very big first month and first quarter of the year. In addition to those shows, we have Project Runway coming back in January, which we just think is a breakout show that is growing and growing, and we wanted to come back even stronger in January,” Bravo president Lauren Zalaznick said.
Bravo also will tout the second-season premiere in late January of Celebrity Poker Showdown, the network’s second-highest-rated show behind the original Queer Eye.
The bulk of Bravo’s marketing campaign will be unveiled Jan. 3, with buys on TBS, Turner Network Television, Food Network and The Learning Channel, as well as The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, according to Bravo senior vice president of marketing Jason Klarman.
Bravo will also place ads on NBC Universal corporate siblings NBC, USA Network, Sci Fi Channel, CNBC and MSNBC.
And it plans a guerilla-marketing campaign in the top 10 markets, handing out more than 150,000 pink and blue bubblegum cigars, which tie into an “It’s a girl” teaser campaign Bravo has been running for Queer Eye for the Straight Girl, Klarman said.
An outdoor campaign for Queer Eye will feature billboards in Manhattan’s Times Square and along Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard, along with posters on subways and transit shelters. Bravo is also securing radio time in the top 25 markets, where it will run 30-second “Queer Eye hip tips” on personal grooming, Klarman noted.
Bravo also bought double-page spreads in People, Star Magazine and US Weekly, Klarman said.
For more on Bravo’s new campaign, please see Steve Donohue’s story on page 52 of Monday’s issue of Multichannel News.
