Planet Earth II
Creative | Content Strategist
Client: BBC Earth
As social and content lead for Planet Earth II, I oversaw a year long project across creative, strategy and production that became BBC Earth and BBC Studios’ most successful series launch to date.
As well as leading the creative and content strategy on all social originals and behind-the-scenes content, I developed a series of influencer pieces including a wonderful meeting of minds between science YouTuber Vsauce, with Sir David Attenborough.
But alongside that Snakes v Iguana clip, perhaps the most impactful element of the campaign was the three minute long cinematic trailer I commissioned for the series launch.
Tailored for social, rather than a 60’ or 30’ TVC, the trailer garnered over 50 million organic video views across Facebook and YouTube within 48 hours of publishing, as well as blanket press and digital coverage, making it the BBC’s most viewed trailer ever.
In total, I led the creative and content strategy on over 60 pieces of social content including 360s, Lives, audio-first and much more). I was awarded the BBC’s Global Excellence and Rising Star awards for my work on the series and was a finalist in The Marketing Society’s Young Marketing Leader of the Year. The campaign was also awarded at the Lovie Awards, Webbys and Creative Circle.
The iconic ‘Extended’ Series Trailer
A series of Attenborough narrated 360 BTS films
Behind the scenes with Sir David
A series of relaxing 10 hour(!) Planet Earth II soundscapes
YouTuber Vsauce meets Sir David Attenborough
360 video of Hans Zimmer’s score being recorded
Iguana vs Snakes
Before Planet Earth II that the generally accepted principle at the BBC was that ‘if you release the best bit online, nobody will watch it on TV’. And with a slew of international co-producers and affiliate broadcasters on the BBC’s most expensive series in history, this took some strategic challenging. In the end we persuaded the powers that be to release the iconic ‘Iguana vs Snakes’ sequence from Episode 1 across social just after it aired.
This not only lead to millions of views of the original clip on social and views of UGC, influencer and TV parodies in the billions but also, to help disprove the old adage, increased linear ATV viewership of Planet Earth II’s second episode vs episode one, the following Sunday.