The campaign revolved around the launch of the CSI:NY crime show on the channel. The objective of the campaign was to create awareness about the show’s impending arrival and demonstrate what it was about. A virtual episode of the show was created, using all the characters from the programme, but in the form of an interactive game in which consumers were invited to solve a murder mystery set in New York.
Teaser banners online showed mock crime scenes, and drove traffic to the game. Some of the clues necessary to solve the crime were online, and some, at different levels of the game, were only available by SMS.
To get started, users had to text ‘CSI CLUE’ to the channel’s shortcode. They then received instructions about where to look for clues. Once a ‘blood sample’ was collected online, the user had to text in ‘CSI BLOOD’ to get more clues. Those sending SMS messages were asked if they wanted to opt in to future communication from AXN, and those who said yes were sent reminders half an hour before the show aired.
The online campaign delivered a 1% clickthrough rate on 12.2m impressions, and more than 30% of those who clicked through went on to play the game. There were almost 7,000 opt-ins to the SMS notification service.
