Horror Playbook

Top 10 Things to Know when Planning Horror

  1. When planning AV, we should always plan post 19:30 as a rule of thumb. If possible, we would
    always ask for a “softer” copy if wanting to broaden out targeting (as we did for IT2)
  2. OOH does not face the same time restrictions as AV, however, we would always recommend
    sharing the copy with Kinetic and media owners at the very first instance to confirm if it is suitable – as a rule of thumb we do not plan in close proximity to religious monuments or schools
  3. As a given, we should prioritise logged in users, age appropriate content and user-initiated
    formats across social and YouTube to ensure we are reaching 15+/18+ and protecting ourselves against ASA complaints
  4. Creative should be supplied to media owners as soon as possible before campaign live dates to allow for potential delays and disapprovals – especially across YouTube where the ads areapproved on a case by case basis (see Google Guidelines link for more information)
  5. Under 25 quads are the core audience for horror titles across the board, with 15-24s making up
    the highest % of admissions across both the Conjuring and IT Franchises
  6. Most traditional heartland horror titles skew male, but the Conjuring Franchise skews more
    gender neutral, with Annabelle and Conjuring skewing slightly female
  7. Focusing spend in week of release and the added PR from the “banned” ad worked in The Nuns
    favour, delivering a very high % of 15-24s in the opening weekend. This clearly demonstrates the power of WOM for horror titles
  8. Featurette longer form, and self-initiated engaging content deliver very strong results for cold
    audiences (especially across IT2 and The Nun). Partners should be considered to help us deliver on this when planning.
  9. When splitting up content into “very scary”, “scary” and “not so scary” we should consider the role for each creative against HWC framework. For example, for IT2, BLS results showed that
    “very scary” copy did not resonate/perform well for warm audiences
  10. We should consider splitting out horror fans into broad and core audiences to test their
    reactions to different content. Previous learning shows that broad and core audiences on YT behave differently, but they behave similarly on social

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