Crowdfunding to box office gold: The strategic media planning behind 'The Chosen'
- Michelle Andrade
- Apr 25
- 7 min read
Exverus VP of Media Planning & Strategy Tasha Day spoke on the Screen & Sponsor podcast about the omnichannel media strategy for TV's smash hit “The Chosen”. An excerpt of their conversation is below.
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S&S: I'd love to hear about the different channels that Exverus is hitting with this and what inspired you to go with those particular mediums.
T: We like to look at everything. As I mentioned, at Exverus we're believers in a full funnel strategy; that awareness is just as important (it’s critical) to drive conversion results (ticket sales, merchandise sales, etc.) And so we have a varied media mix that we employ to drive results for “The Chosen”, which includes:
For our ongoing merch plan, it's everything from Video and YouTube, where we know we can target not only faith-based content but other history content and things that resonate with the kind of viewers who would be interested in “The Chosen”.
For our upcoming campaign, for example, for the release of Season Five, this is gonna be next-level because we know we really need to make a splash. And so we've got tons of tentpole activations from:
lots of high-impact CTV that connects directly to ticket sales through a QR code
Display: We'll be retargeting people who were exposed to our CTV in the first week and then letting them know: Part Two is gonna be coming out this weekend; Part three is coming out the next weekend.
Paid Search to capture interest in all the demand we're creating as a result of featuring "The Chosen" in these super cool Out-of-Home wallscapes and taking over Times Square.
It's gonna be really exciting!
"We're creating a moment for 'The Chosen' this year."
And then, since you brought up the app, we've seen tremendous results driving app downloads for "The Chosen". In fact, in three months, we helped drive an additional million downloads, so they've got over 5 million now. And [we’re] using Display and Search placements in Apple to drive serious web traffic; we saw over +211% increase in where-to-watch web traffic, which would lead people to download the app, so they could watch previous seasons of “The Chosen” for free.
That's the great thing about “The Chosen”, is that they want to make it accessible to everybody regardless of where they live or what language they speak. So it's available in 600 languages, and we also support the effort globally. We have media buys – YouTube, for example, in 20 international markets pushing viewership through the app so that people know that it is available to everyone. It's available for free, so they can join the community and get excited about what really is a very emotional drama that's really fun to watch.
S&S: Of course, this is a special instance, but as you're talking, I'm just thinking to myself: It's almost like a DTC play, because you and the filmmakers are managing this full-funnel experience for everyone. And if you're working, I assume, with a traditional distributor, then maybe there are more stipulations about how you might approach something like that, which will be a question for another time! But it's just something that came to mind as you were talking – perhaps this is a new way we're gonna start seeing things get made and then supported by agencies.
T: Absolutely. And it's exciting to be part of this unconventional way of bringing entertainment and content to people. I do think it very much could be the way of the future. I mean, it's shifting from traditional studios to really making it about what the fans want, and they're showing (or they're proving) that they want it by investing in it. The series has been available on multiple streaming partners in the past, and they're consolidating this year. I don't know if I'm at liberty to share quite yet who that one streaming partner is gonna be, but it is a big one! Just the fact that the streaming partners were competing to be able to have the rights to stream all the seasons and this new one, shows what kind of demand and interest there is in the show.
We're super stoked about this year, as well as the fact that there's gonna be coming theatrical events that are even bigger. Because what happens after “The Last Supper” is the series of events that happen in the story, between the crucifixion and the resurrection…there's so much story to tell. It's really exciting to be a part of it.
S&S: I am kind of curious. What challenges do you guys face? I imagine being crowdfunded that, sometimes you guys have to maybe pull back budget or things like that? Or is it because you guys have the nonprofit? Does it come in pretty well? Is your budget pretty consistent?
T: No. Actually, it has not been. One of the biggest challenges that we faced initially and that we've been communicating and working with “The Chosen” – and they've been great partners, they see us as experts and true partners, and they listen to what we have to say – is coming in, knowing what it really takes to break through for theatrical release, because it is competitive. And with declining movie attendance as it is, plus many features coming out on the same weekend, it's gonna be really challenging to make an impact, with $3MM nationally. I mean, that's just pennies when you're talking about a theatrical release.
And so over the past year, we have had many, many conversations and shared much data to prove how an increased investment would benefit them in terms of reach and frequency, media best practices, and principles we'd be meeting that would set them up for success to help them reach their theatrical ticket goals and their merchandise sales goals. It has very much been an education along the way, both for us and for them as our partnership has grown, to prove why more investment was actually going to help them unlock their business goal success. So, their investments are up much more – 4x [higher] this year than they were last year. So it is working, and we have a ton of faith that all of that media and increased media investment is going to make the impact that they need to keep the show going.
S&S: I imagine that you guys have to spend a lot of time figuring out the lifetime value of a crowdfunded project. Right? Are they sticking around and then also buying the merch and how you guys are able to benefit from that? I'm curious, what are you guys' main KPIs? I guess you have the app installs, the viewership, and (I imagine) return on investment, but I'm just curious.
T: Yeah, it does vary by initiative. For the theatrical piece, they've done a lot of research; they actually have really smart research people on their end who formerly worked at Disney. And their goal for this theatrical release is to increase their awareness, because through research, they realized that was one of the biggest barriers to getting people to actually attend subsequent theatrical releases. Nobody knew that there was a release one weekend, and then two weekends later, they were gonna release the next couple of episodes in theater. So, we have an awareness increase: a hard number that they want to reach, say, they wanna get to a 55% awareness [goal] with this campaign, which I totally think we can do, especially because we've done the work, and we know what our media plan will get them.
But then also, in tandem with that is ticket sales. They have ticket sales KPIs. They've got numbers that they have to meet. And so, we're connecting the pipes on the back end and implementing things like I mentioned, like the QR code that will lead to ticket purchase on our CTV so that we can track ticket activity on our end so that we can monitor how well the media plan is delivering against those ticket sales goals.
Of course, merch is a really interesting one, and we've done some really, really cool things there because merch was all about a revenue increase goal. And so, we have done a lot of work connecting the pipes on the back end between their Shopify accounts and our dashboards and data and implementing multi-touch attribution that attributes how much merchandise sales each channel is providing – how much CTV, for example, or how much Search is contributing to the revenue goals. We've learned so much about the different multi-touch attribution models there are between algorithmic and linear. And I know it seems like I'm seeking a different language, but it's been super interesting to put such concrete results against our media plans for merch.
S&S: Well, I think it's interesting too. You always hear of media agencies that wind up helping their clients actually discover new target audiences. I talked to some folks at some point that said, We didn't realize that our home security camera could be interesting for fish owners who wanted to watch their fish while they were gone. So just funny things like that. But it seems like there's an opportunity with all this data and analytics to really go deep for them and then bring them insights that maybe they didn't even know.
T: Absolutely. And that's another one of our goals for this year's campaign is that they identified some areas where we can beef up viewership even against women, which might seem counterintuitive, but the majority of viewership comes in through men who bring it to their family. And so, one of the goals is: How can we find the right insights to connect with women so that we're getting women to also start the viewership chain and bring it into their home?
Of course, the a-ha moments come not only with research upfront but as we activate the campaign and look at performance. That's going to be a particular focus this year, is to figure out how can we really connect with women and then optimize our plans so that we're speaking to them in a way that then fuels word-of-mouth or it grows the fanbase with women specifically.
S&S: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Tasha, for sharing all of these insights. I feel like I learned quite a bit about the process of marketing a series. So really appreciate having you on, and until next time.
T: Thanks so much for having me. This has been really fun.
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