Frequent Facebook surfers may be familiar with Matt Bellassai. Every Wednesday, he gets drunk at his desk in the BuzzFeed news room and complains about stuff. Hence the name of his show, Whine About It.

While getting drunk and complaining about stuff is a relatively common occurrence, rarely is it as funny as when Bellassai takes it on. And the five-minute or so Web video series has attracted enough attention that Bravo thought it made sense to work with the show to promote its upcoming docu-series, Après Ski, about Gibbons Life, a luxury concierge company that operates out of Whistler, British Columbia.

“Matt had the right sensibility for this show. He has a built-in audience and we wanted to capitalize on this existing popular series,” says Maria DeLuca, senior VP, consumer and trade marketing at Bravo.

Whine About It, while hilarious, isn’t for the prim and proper, since Bellassai frequently drops F-bombs and makes sexual references. The man has been drinking, after all.

For example, in the opening of this episode, Bellassai asks: “Who the f (bleep) looks at a gd (bleep) mountain and thinks, ‘you know what would fun ... if I just fell all the way down a slippery mountain and broke my s (bleep).”

But that didn’t bother Bravo.

“I thought about the swearing and the sensibility of Whine About It but I think everyone is moving in the direction of creating organic content,” says DeLuca. “We wanted to deliver our message through his voice. We wanted him to be him and make it feel as native as possible. We felt like this was a good opportunity to resonate with a young audience that’s interested in pop culture. He has the voice do that through his followers and his strong engagement.”

Bravo’s sponsorship of Whine About It marked the first time the Web series had been sponsored, giving the network a first-to-market opportunity. While for Bravo that’s a selling point, it also demonstrates that the network is willing to take some big marketing risks. “First-to-market” also means “unproven.”

So far, it seems to be working out even better than planned. The video has more than 3 million views on Facebook, “which is over delivering what we expected,” says DeLuca. Bellassai himself has more than 1.2 million likes on Facebook. Whine About It also has its own page on Tumblr and many people parody the show on Instagram and on other social platforms. Bravo also posted the video on the Après Ski Facebook page.

To get people to tune in, Bravo also partnered with Shazam, running a promo that allowed people to Shazam the first episode, which was available on video on demand, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms.

Beyond the campaign with BuzzFeed, Bravo is holding a “Whistler While you Work” contest, inviting fans to post on Twitter and Instagram on why they deserve a snow day. The lucky winner will then have a snow day provided for them (and their entire office) by Bravo, including such winter treats as indoor snow (who doesn’t want that?), hot chocolate and post-ski-day massages, even though it’s unlikely the winner will have gone skiing recently.

In another partnership, travel site Jetsetter created an Après Ski-inspired collection and “offered a first-to-market cross-platform home page takeover,” says DeLuca. A visit to the site will reveal a pop-up promo for the show, and other advertisements as well.

Around episode three, the Bravo team is going to host an Après Ski cocktail party in New York — complete with show-themed winter cocktails — with the talent.

Finally, a tune-in-to-win sweepstakes will whisk the winners to Whistler for a custom experience with the Après Ski team. Viewers watching will just need to identify and tweet a hashtag to be entered for the chance to win a ski vacation for two, with the sweepstakes encouraging live viewership.

Après Ski premieres Monday, November 2, on Bravo at 10 pm ET/PT.

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