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Nat Geo WILD recently debuted a bold campaign for its upcoming event week, SharkFest.
Sound familiar? Good. Nat Geo WILD does not mind that Shark Fest sounds like Shark Week. In fact, it’s airing at the exact same time, both starting Sunday, July 5.
SharkFest’s promo (above), kicking off the campaign, stars standup and improv comedian Rory Scovel standing in front of a giant screen with continuous shark footage, free-associating about the plan to lure in viewers by encouraging that confusion.
“We’re not that other week of shark TV,” he says in the spot. “And we want you to confuse the two. And you WILL and we don’t care, because it gets us ratings. We’ve done it for years, we’re going to continue to do it.”
It’s clear that Nat Geo WILD is trying to get ratings by getting shark lovers to watch even more shark programming, maybe even tuning in on accident. And that’s the beauty of it.
The campaign addresses the naming and marketing issue head on, in a hilariously upfront way.
“Shark Fest! Yeah, maybe it’s not our idea – who cares? Just watch it.”
Scovel goes on for a full minute in the promo about why it doesn’t matter where you tune in because the sharks don’t care what network you’re on anyway.
“These sharks don’t know what channel they’re on, and neither do you. Synergy.”
Scovel became involved Nat Geo’s campaign through an improv connection with Tyler Korba, creative director for on-air marketing at National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD. Scovel has also worked with the network before, creating a series of funny YouTube spots about a man who lives with a bear to promote Expedition Grizzly. The project’s simple concept and clever execution lined up perfectly with what Nat Geo needed this time around.
“The ads were silly and jokey,” says Scovel, “just to make people realize there’s a show coming out about a guy who lives with a bear. I guess my performance just made sense for something like this.”
Scovel, who performs improv and standup around the country, also appears on several TV shows, including TBS’ Ground Floor. He says that while Nat Geo had a solid idea of what they wanted out of this campaign, he was able to bring his own brand of comedy as well.
“There’s something I really liked about the honesty,” he says about the idea for the campaign. “It’s not their idea, they’re airing something at the same time – but they’re completely honest about it.”
Both coming from an improv background, Scovel and Korba agreed to use the script as a guide and see where it took them. In the end, Scovel says about half of the promo ended up being improvised – an impressive number for TV projects overall, but especially for a promotional campaign like this one.
“The energy was great because it was basically me having to be high energy while footage of sharks played behind me,” says Scovel. “They told me, ‘OK, you get the concept, you get the energy. Just keep talking and we’ll keep shooting.’ That kind of performance is always really fun for me because in a way there’s no pressure. Different ideas come to mind and its great that [Director] Jordan Brady was open to things.”
He also says that for this project, this type of script/improv combination was especially perfect because of the short one-liners Nat Geo was able to use in the end.
“I think it’s hard to really write stuff out, especially when you’re looking for quick short punches,” he says. “It’s hard to get all that on the page.”
In the spot, Scovel admits on Nat Geo’s behalf that Shark Week came first and this is no new idea. So now Scovel has become not only the face of SharkFest’s campaign, but in a way he’s now the face of the NOT Shark Week campaign as well.
“I’m curious if it goes in that direction of being labeled the anti-Shark Week,” he says. “I recently re-watched the spot and thought, ‘oh I wonder if Discovery will make a rebuttal to this.’ It could be really fun engagement.”
In the end, the brutal honesty of the spot is what drew Scovel to the campaign in the first place, and he sees it as Nat Geo’s biggest strength.
“I think people enjoy that Nat Geo is just like ‘look we didn’t think of this, we didn’t start this, all we’re doing is just trying to trick you completely,‘” he says. “In my opinion, there’s some immense amount of likeability in that situation. There’s a part of you that’s like ‘oh well, at least you know that you’re doing it, you’re not pretending that you’re not.’ I love that it’s playful. I hope everyone’s taking it in that way.”
Scovel added that this could potentially be a fantastic cross-promotional campaign opportunity for both brands. He suggests that Discovery could cast a Scovel look-alike, playing off the Nat Geo promo and go back and forth, promoting both Shark Week and SharkFest at once.
Your move, Discovery.
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