AMC Networks’ new Silicon Valley drama “The Audacity” will have its world premiere this weekend at SXSW. It follows a sneak peek of the series in January at CES. And if that feels a little techie, that’s on purpose.
“For ‘The Audacity’ specifically, this is a prestige, character-driven story set against the backdrop of tech and the tech world, and CES and SXSW are perfect places to connect with early fans, because the audience there is so leaned into and deeply connected to conversations around technology and they’re so culturally engaged,” said AMC Networks Chief Marketing Officer Kim Granito. “The type of audiences that these festivals attract are curious and influential and perfect for we’re trying to do in this early phase of the show.”
The Austin-based festival will host the world premiere of the first two episodes, with the ensemble cast part of the screening ahead of the April 12 debut on AMC and AMC+. The dark comedy, which has already been picked up for a second season, features a datamining CEO (Billy Magnussen) with loose ethics in a world the logline describes as full of “jaded billionaires, psychiatrist-gurus, bio-hacked tech bros, AI labs and disillusioned teens being optimized in elite private schools.” At SXSW, Kara Swisher will record a live episode of her podcast “On with Kara Swisher” with executive producer Jonathan Glatzer and star Magnussen.
“SXSW is really just one single peg in a much larger matrix in the early phase of this campaign to get the show out there with an influential tech-forward audience,” said Granito. “We’re doing screenings at many of the major tech companies and a lot of our ad agency partners … Early, first looks with the right people a big tactic in the rollout of the show.”
Participation Trumps Promotion
When you have a big event like SXSW or CES that have tens of thousands of attendees, brands have a lot of competition for attention. Granito’s advice is to think the goal of reaching the right people vs. the most people. “The filter for us as marketers isn’t just about promotion. It’s about participation. If someone is getting out there — they’re out of their homes, out of their daily routine, to show up there — we want to make sure that we’re creating really meaningful lanes for them to participate in a way that makes creative sense for that particular IP,” she said.
While SXSW isn’t a regular stop in AMC’s marketing rotation, the festival was used in 2014 to premiere series “Halt and Catch Fire” ahead of its television debut. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak hosted a panel with the cast that got a ton of press, with Woz giving the show about the personal computer revolution his stamp of approval for accuracy and watchability.
“I think a lot of what we’re doing now at SXSW is modeled after that experience,” Granito said. “Those early cultural moments at an event like SXSW, while it’s just a single beat on ground, it is also often the first sort of early spark that you can fan throughout the rest of the campaign.”
On Gauging Success
So how should a marketer measure success at such a big event? It’s never direct one-to-one ROI, Granito cautioned. “On the ground activations and screenings are really designed to not only create early buzz, but content that could then be used throughout the entire campaign,” she said. “I think the thing that is really great and fun as a marketer about live events is that you can see and feel the energy in the room. It’s like being immersed into a massive marketing focus group. And it’s oftentimes a really great early litmus test for how the audience is responding, what you need to do more of [and] what you should probably stop doing.”