Having aired first in the U.S via BBC America, we were tasked with bringing the TV show Killing Eve to the UK. Killing Eve is a BBC Three drama about a fearsome assasin (Villanelle) and a bored MI6 agent (Eve), who once on each other’s radars, become entangled in an obsessive game of cat and mouse. Praised for its modernity and original scriptwriting (developed by the award winning Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Killing Eve is an assassin thriller like no other. It’s funny, thrilling, with an air of progressive originality; everything the campaign needed to be.

We had one objective: get the BBC Three audience of 16-35 year olds to watch Killing Eve on iPlayer.

It was/is still the case in 2018 that women are consistently underestimated. This is particularly the case on screen, and definitely the case for the character of Villanelle.

At first look, Villanelle appears a harmless, very beautiful woman. Well dressed, well cultured and seemingly unthreatening. But in reality, Villanelle is a cold-hearted, psychopathic killer. A master of luring victims into her deadly web. Murdering in unexpected ways by playing up to the very expectation her victims have of her.

This idea brings to life the notion that you should never underestimate a woman. She may end up being more dangerous than you could ever imagine. She may be Pretty Deadly.

"Pretty Deadly" encapsulates the character and behaviours of Villanelle, whilst also rooting Killing Eve in British humour and terminology; something we wanted to dial up in the British launch of the show.

Through social listening and analysis of editorial around the BBC America launch, we were able to identify some of the core themes that were resonating with the audience. The most prominent of these were the tone of the show (witty, refreshing, dark humour) and the groundbreaking lead of Villanelle (the first female assassin of her kind). These became our core focuses for the campaign. We asked ourselves “how do we introduce Villanelle to the UK through marketing?” “And how do we do so in a way that’s true to her character and the tone of the show?” The strategy…we make our marketing behave as Villanelle; the beautiful, underestimated deadly psychopath.

We made our audience our victims and went undercover in their most used platforms (mobile dating apps, mobile-first social platforms (via direct engagement and influencers), and editorial).

We executed as Villanelle would: we trolled, we stalked and we scared.

We trolled:

We executed an underground takeover of MI6’s neighbouring station; Vauxhall; to warn the organisation (+ commuters/press) that Villanelle was coming. We included targeted copy e.g. “There’s someone you should know about MI6”, and placed them consecutively throughout the station and in front of the MI6 offices.

We stalked:

We created a Happn sponsored profile that matched Villanelle with our audience through a fabricated “crossing of paths”. It included iconic shots of Villanelle that swiped from pretty to deadly and a darkly humorous profile description. We also sent 11,000 direct messages.

We scared:

We took over the Killing Eve Instagram account, following Eve after Eve (targeting influencers), triggering the notification ‘Killing Eve started following you’, which they shared.

All supported by an influencer screening, user-generated review trailers, a bespoke emoji, responsive social engagement and personalised email targeting.

As a result of our campaign, Killing Eve became the most watched box set ever to exist on iPlayer, with 6.6million requests in the first 7 days and a total of 46.7million requests overall. On top of that, we gained 32 million social impressions, got ‘Killing Eve’ to the top trending topic on twitter within 15 minutes of the first episode (which continued consistently for 8 hours) and delivered just shy of half a million impressions (498k) through our activity on the dating app Happn (5x better than the industry standard). Every KPI was exceeded. Not bad for £80k and a target audience with decreasing interest in the BBC.