Showtime Social Rebrand with Watson Digital Group
My Role: Art Director (Showtime)
The brief: work with Watson Digital Group to update Showtime’s social feeds (organic/editorial and acquisition) to feel premium, unique, and consistent; increase brand attribution. The new system was meant to be an interim look-and-feel solution while we completed our research on voice and strategy and awaited the green light for a full network rebrand.
Within those “change it, but not too much” parameters, we were able to update our pure black and white to softer ivory and smoke; we left our legacy red the same.
Watson created new guidelines for selecting more impactful, emotional photography. Design for series and network attribution was systematized yet remained flexible. All graphic elements aligned to a 15x15 (72 pixel x 72 pixel) grid. Our memes were elevated while still feeling native to social media.
Showtime is a home for artists. In order to let our content shine through, we kept the grid as clean as possible while still maintaining attribution (in fact, a clean grid helps attribution pop). We used the Sho bug for organic content and the full Showtime logo for aquisition posts.
Iconic designer Ivan Chermayeff’s Showtime logo contains a clever highlighting device: the Sho circle. So it made sense for us to use circles to focus attention in our compositions (using the shape as a spotlight).
We paired our legacy DIN typeface with serif Vesterbro to make our layouts a touch more premium and also give the social team more variety to work with.
The aesthetic carried across carousels, quote posts, acclaim, memes, and stories for 1x1, 4x5, and 9x16.
In addition to organic social content, we updated our paid media.
Social static variety posts showcase more than one series at a time. Different layout options allowed flexibility for showcasing different kinds of key art while maintaining a consistent feel that is uniquely Showtime.
Pared back colors and tasteful CTA buttons were premium, and an uncluttered design allowed the messaging to grab attention and be effective.
There was a motion component to the look-and-feel update as well. Watson re-skinned a social acquisition spot that performed well for us [the original can be found here]. The spot kept the same attention-grabbing energy but in a look that was consistent with the rest of the social feed.
Our circle animation was quick (attention grabbing) but with an ultra-finessed ease (elevated/premium).
How to make our social aquisition spots even more eye-catchy, more scroll-stoppy, but without losing that premium feel?
We allowed more red.
Partner banner ads tied into the same style as social posts for a more premium and consistent look across touchpoints.
Credits:
Showtime Team:
Garrett Wagner, SVP, Executive Creative Director
Christina Black, VP, Creative Director
Amber Kusmenko, Art Director
Rosanne Raposo, Lead Graphics Producer
Watson Design Group Team:
Matt Grippi, Senior Creative Strategist
Fernando Ramirez, Creative Director
Emma White, VP Strategy + Operations
Brandon Moats, Jr. Creative Director
Angelica Maleski, Account Manager
Justin Kielbasa, Art Director
Jacklin Maisyan, Director of Strategy & Social
Tracy Robinson, Managing Director
Internal Communications Brand Alignment
Once we were happy with the social rebrand look from Watson, the next step was for the Showtime team to bring our internal Showtime communications in line. Previously, Showtime communications were a hodgepodge created by myriad individual employees who laid out their own email announcements and newsletters and bedazzled their own email signatures.
Working with the email and digital teams, we came up with templated designs for HR annoucements, PR alerts, and email signatures. We aligned designs between web friendly vs. brand fonts to allow a consistent look across devices.
Next we updated our YouTube end cards to be consistent across all series (*minus those that have their own YouTube channels).
