E! The Royals

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CLIENT:

SERVICES:

Social Media (Campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat)

MY ROLE:

Art Director, Designer, Animator/Video Editor, Illustrator

AGENCY:

VaynerMedia

YEARS:

2015-2017 / Seasons 1-3

CREATIVE DIRECTOR:

John McGill

COPYWRITERS:

Marisa Lynch, Jackie Ansell, Jessica Druck

My work with The Royals (E!, Lionsgate, Universal Cable Products) is near and dear to my heart. It was the first account I worked on when I started at VaynerMedia. I had been the lone art director for seasons 1-3, and I loved watching the series grow.

Our immediate challenge, in the beginning, was to grow the fanbase. We tackled each and every platform, including Snapchat which was still a new social platform. The team actively engaged and provided relatable custom gifs within the growing community.

We even opened it up to the fans to determine their fanbase name (spoiler alert: we landed on the Loyals). We started to “ship” the relationships in the show, and the fans loved it! Are you #TeamGemma or #TeamOphelia? Are you Team Jaspenor or Team Opheliam? The writer/producer of the show, Mark Schwahn, took notice of these trends within our social content and started writing it into the show, beginning in Season 2.

We also created a Snapchat series show the day after each episode. We called it The Royal Hangover. We even got a little press. (And here’s another one from Adweek, featuring another campaign we did where we locked down the Twitter account for the season finale.) Our client, E!, loved it so much they decided to turn The Royal Hangover into an aftershow right after the episode (a la The Walking Dead’s The Talking Dead).

SEASON 3

Spilling the Royal Tea

Spilling the Royal Tea was a social campaign we launched to drive catch-up throughout season 3. We built a miniature royal dining room set, set up the camera to pan forward, and literally spilled the tea. This was juxtaposed with scandalous moments that happened in each episode.

SEASON 3

Blind Items

Ever heard of the term ``blind item`` in Hollywood? To tease out what happens in upcoming episodes, we created a series for Instagram Stories, featuring anonymous palace insiders. Fans loved speculating about the juicy secrets that were spilled week over week.

SEASON 1

Someecards Spoof

At the time, Someecards was all the rage on the internet. I decided to make The Royals part of that conversation by illustrating the three main characters in the series. Which one do you think out-performed the others?

ALL SEASONS

The Royal Hangover: Snapchat Edition

When The Royals first launched in 2015, Snapchat was booming. This was before you could upload your own videos/photos; everything had to be manually captured on a phone or tablet. Every Monday, the day after an episode aired, I created Snapchat stories for our fanbase, recapping the episode in a very Snapchat-organic way.