As The CW pushes play on its fall season this week and finally takes its place in the premiere spotlight, the broadcaster has one major message for the world: we’re not “The Gossip Girl Network” anymore.

This year’s programming choices and marketing are all geared towards demonstrating that the network once pigeon-holed as a destination for boy-crazy teenage girls—and, let’s be honest, a few boys—has grown up and broadened its horizons.

The variety seen in this fall’s two big original series—The Flash and Jane the Virgin—are proof that The CW is now a bigger, broader broadcast network catering to 18-34 year-old adults, according to Rick Haskins, The CW’s EVP of marketing and digital.

And that variety has meant that Haskins and his team have had to take two very different approaches to launching the series.

“With The Flash, it’s an awesome pilot, and it feels like a movie,” Haskins said. “So what we did is ask ourselves, ‘how do we make this opening feel like a blockbuster?’”

The network went up with a 60-second trailer running in movie theaters, as well as 60-second roadblocks on cable. And like all good film campaigns, the network had a presence in the MTV Video Music Awards.

“It feels big, and I think the creative lives up that that promise,” Haskins said.

Although The Flash is genre fare, the tone of the marketing is hopeful and upbeat—the tagline on posters invites viewers to “discover what makes a hero.”

Shows in the genre space seemed to be getting a bit darker, Haskins said, and The CW wanted The Flash to act more as a “ray of hope.”

But while The Flash seemed to immediately lend itself to a film-style campaign, the network’s other new fall offering—Jane The Virgin—posed more of a challenge.

The series is an adaptation of a Venezuelan telenovela, and follows a hard-working, religious Latina twenty-something who is accidentally artificially inseminated by her doctor. It’s got elements of soap opera, family drama, and comedy all rolled into a multi-generational story featuring three strong women in central roles.

Clearly, not the easiest series to position for viewers.

Fortunately Haskins and his team had the benefit of truckloads of critical love to help them out.

“We are taking advantage of what have been the most positive reviews of any show I have worked on,” Haskins said. “We’re letting the critics do the heavy lifting of enticing people into the show.”

Jane print and cable ads are festooned with critics’ praise, highlighting words like “magnificent,” “marvelous,” and “best show of the year.”

The network also developed a Hispanic overlay with the help of a publicity team and media agency with specific experience reaching out to that audience.

Haskins said they wanted to avoid veering into stereotypes with their messaging, especially when it came to a young, single, and pregnant Latina. The marketing for the series makes it clear that Jane is in her 20s, not a teenager.

Forty-five local market screenings were scheduled to help build grassroots word-of-mouth, and the network had a slightly cheeky tie-in with Virgin America, allowing customers flying ahead of the premiere to sample the show in-flight.

Unlike The Flash, which has a built-in fan base thanks to its comic book heritage, and ties to fan favorite Arrow, Jane doesn’t have a big base to help move the needle at launch.

“The first year is a growing year,” Haskins said. “What you’re hoping to do is being in enough people so you have a significant amount of heft.”

The series benefits from being friendly to a broad female audience, he said, thanks to the three generations of women in Jane’s family—a situation that’s a reflection of many modern Hispanic households. Since the older generation in those households may not speak English, the show will broadcast simultaneously in Spanish-language audio via SAP (Second Audio Program) so that they network can be “as open and friendly as possible.”

Aside from the new series, Haskins said the network’s other priority is “maximizing our social media in year two shows and beyond.”

He cited the strength of Vampire Diaries (23 million Facebook fans) and The Originals (6 million Facebook fans) as indicators of the network’s ability to reach engaged viewers who are ready to amplify exclusive digital content online.

And while he said that on-air promos were still the numberone driver for television tune-in, The CW is seeing increasing returns on their digital and social media efforts. And that could bode well for future audiences who may not be wedded to the idea of consuming content on a TV screen.

“Our digital space is growing at about 55 percent a year—and 50 percent of that is on mobile,” Haskins said.

And you can bet the network will be focusing even more of its efforts on mobile if Jane the Virgin makes it to season two: according to Experian Marketing Services, 55 percent of Hispanic consumers use smartphones to watch video in an average week, compared with 40 percent of non-Hispanics.

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