Situation

Streaming content is saturated with endless, algorithm-driven choices. As a result, TV networks stick to known formulas to win over the code. Few take risks on emerging talent or original series.

But Freeform, a division of Disney, makes its name by backing young adult stories that buck tropes and curb conventions. They give narratives on the periphery a platform.

Last year, Freeform completed their streaming-first transition and evolved their programming. Their purpose, story and brand voice needed to transform, too.

Brief

Help Freeform transition effectively to be a streaming-first network, attract new viewers and strengthen the brand.

Objectives

Transform Freeform from broadcast channel to streaming-first creator and expand the scope of their original content–all while retaining their devoted fans and recruiting new ones.

Project Scale

Brand strategy, voice and design system spanning all touchpoints from broadcast and streaming platforms to in-app, online, print and outdoor expressions.

Last year, Freeform completed their streaming-first transition and evolved their programming. Their purpose, story and brand voice needed to transform, too.

We started by helping Freeform understand their unique strength: giving the periphery a platform. Their original content had supported emerging voices for years, enabling people underrepresented in the media to be seen and heard and earning them a devoted fan base among young adults.

We gave Freeform a new core promise: To push new perspectives. To deliver on it, they would lean farther into the convention-curbing original programming that had set them apart from the beginning.

This repositioned them from channel to creator. From "on Freeform" to "Made by Freeform."

For a network that explores new perspectives and twists on old ones, we created a brand that does just that across all of Freeform’s touchpoints–from broadcast and streaming platforms to in-app, online, print and outdoor expressions.

When Freeform speaks, it's through a typeface that never resolves. Taking the original cut of Helvetica, Neue Haas Grotesk (designed in 1957-1961 by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman), we transformed it with the type foundry Monotype. Giving Freeform a voice that invites you to look again and again.

In repositioning Freeform, we elevated original, streaming-first content as its strategic imperative. The Freeform original, Single Drunk Female, debuted after cementing our strategy. It was the most-watched comedy series debut in four years. Over 2.4 million multiplatform viewers watched in the first week.

The expanded slate of originals for the rest of Q2 - Q3 looks bright, too:

- Premieres of Love Trip: Paris and The Watchful Eye

- Grown-ish returns for a sixth season

- Good Trouble returns for fifth season

- Cruel Summer returns for its second season