It’s been five months since Shonda Rhimes took over ABC’s Thursday lineup, creating a power programming night with Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder and a new hashtag (#TGIT) that took over the Twittersphere all season long.

The three shows kicked off Sept. 25, 2014 with an intense lead-in campaign centered on TGIT (Thank God It’s Thursday). The promotion touted the new How to Get Away with Murder as well as the entire night as one can’t-miss TV event.

The challenge for ABC’s marketing team went beyond convincing people to watch three shows all grouped together – ABC wanted them to watch live, stick around for the entire lineup and engage online.

One year later, TGIT is considered a huge success when measuring Nielsen ratings, social conversation and the staggering presence of TGIT and its shows in the zeitgeist.

“Our goal was to get people not only tweeting and watching live but to get them to watch television for three straight hours which just doesn’t really happen anymore,” says Rebecca Daugherty, VP of dramas, specials and movies at ABC Entertainment Marketing. She added that not only did they see this happen, many fans of Scandal found a new favorite show in Grey’s Anatomy and vice versa. The lineup managed to ramp up interest in each show on Thursday nights for fans who may not have been aware of the other two.

“I think we have made excellent strides,” says Marla Provencio, ABC Entertainment Group’s CMO/EVP of marketing. “Viewers are feeling more compelled to watch live because they want to partake in the immediate conversation.”

With Live+3 ratings, How to Get Away with Murder was seen by more than 20 million people. Grey’s Anatomy, the night’s lead-in at the tough time slot of 8 p.m., had 13 million viewers and Scandal’s premiere hit nearly 16 million.

The entire lineup boasted the three most-watched shows of the night, with How to Get Away with Murder being named the No. 1 new drama of fall. TGIT gave ABC its strongest Thursday premiere night in five years.

But to ABC fans, #TGIT became more than just a fall launch campaign.

“We’ve sort of created a lifestyle,” said Daugherty. “The last week before the shows came back from break, people were already talking about their plans – getting popcorn ready, their red wine – it’s really become more than just a night of television at this point.”

Once the Thursday night lineup kicked off, fans responded enthusiastically. ABC had only to respond to the conversation already in progress. The on-air team would work with social and digital to take viewer tweets and place them in short promos to air throughout the day on Thursdays.

Only two months later, the winter finales became events as well, motivating people to keep their social activity up and keep playing along. This was also where viewers started to hear medical terminology to describe TGIT:

“The beautiful part of TGIT and how fans interact with the show is that they’re already vocal,” said Chizoba Ezeh, manager of digital strategy and social media, ABC Entertainment Marketing. “We can see every day what they’re excited about.”

It was precisely that existing excitement that sparked ABC’s TGIT Withdrawal Campaign.

There’s a fine line between keeping fans engaged while a show is off the air and creating some distance between the network and its fans (following the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” theory). After the midseason finales on Nov. 20, 2014, the team at ABC filled Thursdays with TGIT-related content, including cast Q&As and fan feedback, according to Ezeh, who also spoke about the Withdrawal campaign in PromaxBDA’s Master Class, “Digital First, Social Always.”

“We allowed for people to create a longing for these shows,” said Ezeh, “so when we ramped up again in January, people were actively looking for content again.”

Withdrawal spots ran from ABC’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve until the return from the shows’ midseason hiatus on Jan. 29, 2015 – a date that featured prominently in ABC’s TGIT Withdrawal Disorder campaign: “Know the signs, know the return date, Jan. 29 – no more waiting.”

Stars from the Thursday night lineup including Scandal’s Scott Foley and Katie Lowes appeared in spots like this one:

Each promo diagnosed Shondaland fans of TGIT Withdrawal Disorder, which were especially effective with Grey’s Anatomy stars Sara Ramirez and Kevin McKidd. They describe the ABC lineup as “highly addictive” and prescribe “re-watching while tweeting” and “re-watching with friends” before the return of TGIT.

“We also wanted the fans to know that we ‘felt their pain’ because we were feeling it also,” said Provencio. “In other words, they were not alone – how were we going to ‘cope without Pope?’”

Each spot had an on-air version, a longer Web version and even a blooper reel.

Viewers were encouraged to take part in the Withdrawal campaign by posting GIFs, images and videos using #TGITWithdrawal, which cast members of all three shows also paid attention to and engaged fans through their own social accounts.

The cast participation of TGIT shows works seamlessly as part of this campaign, whether it’s on air or tweeting out how excited they are for the other two shows, according to the team at ABC, because it’s authentic.

“The fans see that it’s not contrived,” said Ben Blatt, executive director of digital strategy at ABC Entertainment Marketing. “The talent truly supports each other for all three shows, and that’s just not replicable as a marketing group.”

It doesn’t hurt when Shonda Rhimes herself keeps up with the episodes on Twitter:

And when the shows came back from break, the fans came back with them. ABC scored its highest 18-49 rating since the September premieres, averaging 9 million viewers for the night. Scandal was the top tweeted-about TV event for that week too, according to Nielsen, when not taking sports into account.

In fact, all three TGIT shows made it into the Top 5 of Nielsen’s Weekly Twitter TV Ratings. Even more than that, the TGIT campaign that started as a hashtag has taken on a life of its own with the help of ABC’s fans. “It’s so engrained in their everyday conversations,” said Ezeh. “Our audience now talks about TGIT as a lifestyle.”

“You can brand a night and be successful – I think TGIT proved that you could do that,” said Melissa King, creative director at ABC Entertainment Marketing. “I was amazed by how quickly the term was embraced. It caught on so fast. Viewers understood immediately.”

When looking for the secret behind TGIT’s success, the team at ABC turns to its viewers. They say that it’s all about being conversational, letting the fans talk, really listening and then encouraging their reactions. “It goes to show you that if you start a conversation with people and don’t talk down to them, you can be successful,” said Daugherty. “We hit on something that’s not always so easy to hit on. Be conversational and maybe you’ll get lucky.”

The season finales of TGIT’s Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder debut Thursday, Feb. 26 when HTGAWM fans will finally find out: “Who killed Lila?”

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