The term ‘deep state’ may not be familiar to Britons, but the ideas underlying they are. The most recent Edelman Trust Barometer found trust in major British institutions at an all-time low. Only 26% trust the government and as low as 32% of us trust charities. Like America, Britain had fallen into a ‘crisis of trust’, a third seeking print media to reassure them. We realised that there was no use throwing advertising money at a series called Deep State if the term itself was alien. This would lead to wastage and low viewership. Our job was to bring the term itself into common usage and then to use the conversation around the idea of the deep state to promote the series. Looking at the data, our media strategy was to collaborate with a credible press outlet to create high-quality journalistic content that made ‘the unfamiliar and unknown, unmissable’.

In phase one, we ran editorials in Trinity Mirror print titles and online. These investigated the idea of the deep state as a concept; true or false, in a UK context. In the second, we drew on the investigative work of Trinity Mirror’s Data Acquisition Unit, uncovering examples of powerful individuals manipulating the state for their own ends, revealing evidence of a British deep state.

In the final phase we moved to heavier promotion of the TV series itself, with out-of-home, print, display, video, social and other content. In total, we ran ten weeks of a complex interconnected media campaign. By the end of this phase, UK searches for the term “deep state” were up by 240%.

The campaign was designed to build momentum and an explosive curiosity on the leading up to series launch, hooking people in to the concept of the deep state to make episode one unmissable.

The wider experience:

1. Increased searches for ‘deep state’ by 240% MOM

2. Contributing to a 138% increase in social conversation around The Deep State

3. Retargeted viewers had a +24% VTR compared to unexposed

The research:

1. 37% said they had tuned in to the first episode of the show

2. 62% shared a positive sentiment towards the show and our campaign. +22% on norm

The campaign itself:

1. Reached 6,100,000 people

2. Delivered 200,000 page views (+233%)

3. 2,000 people discussed the existence of UK deep state on the Mirror

4. Our content remained in the top 5 Google search results for Deep State

The viewership:

1. 34% of viewers were new to the channel, more effective than for any similar show

2. Episode one opened to the second-highest viewing figures ever for Fox TV

3. The series sustained weekly viewing figures over 1 million - a record.