Hallmark Movie Channel made its transition to Hallmark Movies & Mysteries complete on Monday, launching a raft of on-air promo packaging elements incorporating the new logo the network unveiled in July.

Created by Houndstooth – in the agency’s first foray into a comprehensive network rebrand – the elements help create a clearer demarcation between Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and its sister network Hallmark Channel.

“It allows us to really have Movies & Mysteries be our genre channel and have Hallmark Channel be more of our general entertainment channel,” said Susanne McAvoy, EVP of marketing, creative and communications for parent company Crown Media Family Networks. They also firm up the network’s claim over a product few other outlets, if any, can deliver.

“You can’t say ‘Hallmark Mystery’ and think that’s going to be deep and dark and bloody and gory, said McAvoy. “It’s a category that nobody else can own. There’s really not any other network out there that can state a claim on the softer side of mystery.”

In dropping the word “channel” from its name, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries becomes a more modern brand transcending linear television.

“We’re really setting ourselves up for that long-term digital future for all of the different screens where people are consuming content,” said McAvoy.

To properly convey the new moniker in graphics form, Houndstooth and McAvoy’s team combed through hundreds of different logos on the hunt for the perfect fusion of form and function. What emerged artfully highlights the network’s newly established link between Movies and Mysteries by placing a magnifying glass around the ampersand in the channel name. An elegant, old-timey manifestation of the classic sleuthing tool, the glass recalls a more classic, Holmes-ian style of mystery, but then turns fluid and modern when animated on-air. In new Movies & Mysteries channel IDs, the glass dances into frame from the viewer’s perspective, briefly offering a literal on-screen glimpse through itself before twirling into place at its home around the ampersand.

As the creative strategy evolved, said Cantwell, the glass “became the device that really started to spotlight what brought the two components [of Movies and Mysteries] together, and it was that Hallmark Movies & Mysteries looks at moments that you connect to as the viewer and builds these engaging stories around them and that we magnify those moments.”

As Houndstooth continued to magnify the essence of the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries brand, zooming in closer and closer, an almost elemental “creative platform of light and shadow came to life,” said Cantwell. “Movies are projected by light and they’re illuminated by light, and in mysteries you find the answers in the shadows. [The two entities are] also interdependent where shadows are cast by light but also light illuminates the shadows and you find the answers. There was this beautiful serendipity as we drilled down and found the through line conceptually.”

In turn, said Cantwell, light becomes a kind of guide for the viewer, setting up expectations of what’s to come. On the Movies side, one network ID ushers in a tranquil forest, ambient candles glowing softly from tree branches. The message is one of comfort, warmth and beauty – all aspects typically evident in Hallmark movies.

In contrast, on-air elements on the Mysteries side of the network feature more restless illumination, such as flashlights and street lamps. In one boldly atmospheric Mysteries movie open, light and shadow is all the viewer gets – shifting beams moving nervously over the darkened corners of a strange room.

Houndstooth “utilized every tool in the toolkit you can use” to produce the Movies & Mysteries promo packaging, said Cantwell, but always strove “to have a cinematic rich quality to it. Not only because it was appropriate to the content but also to help differentiate both networks. In contrast to Hallmark Channel, which has a very primary feel, Hallmark Movies and Mysteries really tapped into the cinematic quality of the programming and that led us down an organic approach for a lot of this.”

Many people, said Cantwell, have asked where the lovely forest that appears in the above Movies ID is located, so they can go visit it. But the trees, lights and all were a set built by Houndstooth’s design team, with the basic edit done in-camera and CG touch-ups layered in after the fact. Likewise, the agency crafted a Winter Wonderland set for upcoming holiday programming on the new channel, then spruced up footage of it in Cinema 4D. By creating real-world environments, Houndstooth could “make the logo live within those organic spaces,” said Cantwell. “The logo’s a very quiet statement within everything and it’s really only revealed by the light that comes out of the shadows… it needed to have that strong quiet strength to it within the stories we were telling.”

A :60 Image Spot incorporating several of the on-air elements with actual Hallmark Movies & Mysteries programming reveals how deeply the light and shadows concept goes, as beautifully lit scenes from films and series blend seamlessly with promo packaging.

“There’s this sense of light and shadow even in [Hallmark Movies & Mysteries’] content,” said Cantwell. “It’s just there and that when you know you’re on track with a really strong brand position – because the content starts to tell the story for you.”

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