HBO: “We’re Here”

Building authentic connections to the LGBTQIA+ community with Yahoo

How we did it

Drove awareness

Of “We’re Here” within the LGBTQIA+ community

Drove tune-in

Across HBO and HBO Max

Drove discovery

Sparking conversations around drag culture

Background

A pandemic pause

In Spring 2020, HBO premiered “We’re Here,” a television series that followed three drag queens from RuPaul’s “Drag Race” fame as they trained and encouraged small-town hopefuls to shine on their own stages. When plans for HBO’s in-person campaigns fell through due to the pandemic — including a “dragify” event at South by Southwest — the team pivoted quickly, leaning into digital marketing.

Solutions

A premium play

By partnering with Yahoo, HBO virtually reached its core LGBTQIA+ audience of young, vibrant, mobile and video-obsessed viewers. The HBO team generated awareness through Yahoo’s premium content, sparking conversations around drag culture across all corners of the internet. HBO’s style of authentic storytelling easily lent itself to organic integration among key social platforms, and the star power of the three queens (Bob the Drag Queen, Eureka O’Hara, and Shangela Laquifa Wadley) helped spread the word to fans eager for more diverse stories.

Results

Stunning results

It wasn’t long before social chatter took off, lifting metrics across impressions and engagement. Audiences watched videos at an 85% completion rate and spent 880k minutes engaged in the content. HBO had found its fans, and together, with enthusiasm and celebration, it drove forward the cultural conversation around drag.

We knew that if we hit that audience with a show like ‘We’re Here’ that had so much heart — I think I cried at every episode? — it would take off.

Blaise Preau, Director of Multicultural Marketing at HBO & HBO Max

It was a success to see such a massive reach across our platforms in the digital space. Impressions were huge, not just across HBO-owned platforms but across our partner platforms as well.

-JR Tungol, Director of Program Marketing, HBO & HBO Max