We started out by looking at what makes the TV show so unique. The Crown is more than just another beautiful period piece. Instead, it offers an intimate, revealing portrait of one of the most famous women in the world.

Because of the need to maintain an incredibly strict public image, we have always been denied access to Her Majesty’s authentic private history. The truth is, we know very little about her.

The Crown, however, offers us a very different view. We see not just the monarch, but the woman, the wife, the mother, and the daughter.

Our idea: You know the Queen. Now meet Elizabeth.

To build curiosity around the show, we decided to give our audience a glimpse of who she really is: a real, multi-faceted individual. Someone with hopes and fears, quirks and oddities – just like the rest of us.

After researching a wealth of intriguing facts about the "real" Elizabeth, we brought them to life in a variety of unorthodox ways during an intensive two-week period.

Each execution was built for context: as well as existing outdoor sites, we found (or created from scratch) media space on lift doors, coasters, Land Rovers, post boxes, gin bottles, supermarket shelves, home furnishing stores, and more. We even had our own band of roving corgi ambassadors.

Buying media then became a whole different ballgame.

As well as negotiating for site–specific outdoor ads (even down to unique bus-stop locations), we needed to engage with a variety of non-media owners. Negotiations took place with retail outlets, pubs and supermarkets to take over spaces in their stores which they don’t normally open to outside brands. This involved going through multiple contacts and face-to-face meetings to find the right decision makers and finalise approval.

Due to global client confidentiality, we are unable to reveal specific data on both viewership and subscriptions in Singapore during the campaign period.

During the campaign period, the monthly average number of Google searches for “The Crown” soared by 1700%.

Both the campaign and show earned over SGD560,000 in organic PR value, having been covered in 196 news reports in Singapore.

The campaign also earned over 372,000 organic Twitter impressions, with conversations reflecting genuine curiosity generated by our campaign. All mentions on social media were gained organically, and the vast majority of the tweets were overwhelmingly positive.

This campaign features more than 30 different ambient and outdoor executions, with customised messaging and formats for different locations.

The sheer magnitude and complexity of planning and implementing all these placements within the same time period was a very challenging task. We needed to co-ordinate with various parties and negotiate separate terms with each in order to run our campaign.

We also had to monitor the multiple formats closely to ensure they launched on time, and were executed with craft and attention to detail.

Our target audience were Singaporeans aged 20-40, with a bias towards women.

Our concept and media strategy were married together from the beginning. To generate the expansiveness and variety we needed, we took advantage of Singapore’s unique demographics and geography. A tiny, densely populated island, Singapore is the perfect location for a ‘surround-sound’ outdoor approach. Using a mixture of large- and small-scale executions, we could reach out to a broad section of the population over a short period of time.

To ensure our campaign remained surprising and engaging, we explored new media formats that were not previously open to advertising. Our concept focused on using the medium as the message, just as much as the content.

We negotiated for two months with media owners, landlords, retail chains and supermarkets to secure the rights to over 30 distinctive media placements, all launching simultaneously.

The Crown is a Netflix original series, inspired by true events surrounding the life of Queen Elizabeth II.

Our brief was to promote the new series in Singapore and drive viewership in time for its global launch on November 4, 2016. While Netflix itself is a digital brand, at point of briefing we had no specific bias towards digital or any other media channel. Instead, the client tasked us to deliver a creative and media solution that would work seamlessly and effectively to achieve our goals.

Our core objective? To build curiosity and awareness of the show, as evidenced through measurable online behaviours. At the same time, we wanted to generate strong social media traction for both the brand and the series.