Netflix freaks telecoms out. Telecoms—which often innovate not for innovation's sake but as a defense mechanism—pretty much all have their own OTT platforms now.
Belgium-based Telenet's OTT is called Play (catchy!).
If you're a Netflix user, you've probably suffered a few nights scrolling through crap you don't want to watch, cursing its iffy recommendations algorithm and clunky search feature. Telenet decided to use this pain and suffering to its advantage—by promoting the fact that it has trailers that help you pick shows!
We give you the Play Trailer Park, created alongside TBWA\Belgium.
Fun fact: The first movie trailer was born in 1916, when silent films took them on for promotional purposes. This was three years after the first trailer ever—for Broadway show Pleasure Seekers, released in 1913.
So it's easy to take trailers for granted. We forget that the rise of insta-watch streaming services have transformed TV trailers into incidental bonus content that we selectively watch, mostly just to amp ourselves up for a show we're already excited about.
In that light, promoting the fact that your OTT is trailer-equipped actually does feel like a value add. It certainly beats 10 more minutes of endless scrolling, only to land on something safe (like a Jurassic Park marathon, which we just finished! Don't do this!) just to end the misery.
The Play Trailer Park lived for three weeks and invited curious Belgians to spend a night or two in trailers of their choice, Airbnb-style. Six trailers were created for the following shows: Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, The Walking Dead, True Blood, Insecure and Belgian drama Gent West.
A lot of these choices are pretty intense. And given the painstaking attention to detail—from the crappy that food characters eat to replicating their endless, abject terror—we're under the impression this went down like the Stanford prison experiment.
What do you eat in the True Blood trailer once you realize there's nothing to eat (or drink) but … blood? How do you sleep once the Sopranos start banging on your door, looking for fingers to break?
From an "experiential case study" perspective, this is fun work that wins big personality points, especially compared to stuff like the "Netflix and Chill" Airbnb created by Art404 in 2016 (a swagged-out apartment where you could lie under Netflix-branded sheets and, well, chill). Also, the play on "trailer"—the living quarters are actual trailers—is cute low-hanging fruit.
Still, in some cases—say, for The Walking Dead—we'd really rather just be watching from the safety of home. Which raises a worthy point: How many shows are we addicted to just because we enjoy the schadenfreude?
CREDITS
Client: Telenet Play
Contacts : Nathalie Rahbani, Marilyn Debisschop, Isabelle Maselis
Agency: TBWA\Belgium
CD: Jan Macken
Creation: Greg Van Buggenhout, Chiara De Decker, Olaf Meuleman
Account Team: Philippe Van Eygen, Ellen Van Praet
Project Manager: Ken Kools
Art Buyer: Elly Laureys
Production Company: MAKE
Radio Director: Raf Debraekeleer
Radio Producer: Veerle Van Melkebeke
Sound Engineer: Jan Pollet
Design: Olivier Verbeke
Digital Design: Yannick Van der Goten
Motion Design: Vincent De Boeck
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