With seven new series—the most of the five big broadcasters—ABC is going into the fall season with a lot of new content and even more pressure to succeed.

And in an increasingly cluttered market of TV content on-air and off, ABC has focused less on branding comedy blocks and more on letting the content speak for itself, as well as an extra focus this year on watching live.

Each of the broadcast networks is putting most of its marketing muscle behind its biggest bets. Below Brief goes through ABC’s fall strategy.

ABC:

ABC has one of the biggest names this fall, as Joss Whedon’s “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” has been topping social charts all summer and was previously named the most promising new fall series by the Television Critics Association. “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” debuting September 24 with three other new ABC series, has shown up the past month mostly throughout outdoor ads, but it’s by no means ABC’s biggest bet. Freshman comedies “Trophy Wife” and “The Goldbergs” premiere on the same night, and ABC wants to make it clear that though outwardly “S.H.I.E.L.D.” might be getting more love, the network is putting just as much power behind its other launches.

“It’s part of what we do – it’s part of this business,” said Darren Schillace, SVP of marketing at ABC. “We love all of our children and as equally as possible but sometimes it’s the youngest ones we have to pay the most attention to.”

And ABC has four of those babies to launch in the first day alone – on September 24, ABC premieres “Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “The Goldbergs,” “Trophy Wife” and “Lucky 7.”

For its half-hour comedies, ABC is relying on previews to produce word of mouth, hoping that sitcoms like these will bring audiences back again and again.

For “The Goldbergs,” ABC went all in with the ‘80s – even with its key art, awkward family photo-style:

The network also used an old-school marketing technique, using direct mail to entice people to watch. ABC mailed out fake floppy disks with flash drives attached so people could view “The Goldbergs” pilot along with a Christmas card-type note from the family’s matriarch, Beverly (in blue eye shadow above). And where did ABC mail these floppy disks? To anyone they could find in the US named Goldberg. According to Schillace, “It’s just one of those little tactics that helps a fun comedy break out.”

ABC is using new lottery series “Lucky 7” to encourage viewers to watch live. Viewers can go to the “Lucky 7” website to enter a sweepstakes where fans choose seven lucky numbers, and if those are the numbers that are announced throughout the premiere, they can walk away with $100,000. And if that’s not incentive to tune in live, nothing will ever work.

“We’re trying to find fun new ways to encourage people to watch live, or as live as possible,” said Schillace.

And instead of branding one or two of its new comedy blocks, ABC chose to let the content speak for itself, marketing show by show. Rebel Wilson’s new “Super Fun Night,” for example, even got a music video:

“We have to try and focus so we can really stand out in this very noisy time of year,” said Schillace. “We don’t want to water down our message and not have anything break through.”

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