DreamWorks TV / Netflix
Voltron Season 1

Franchise Website & Social Campaign

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Franchise Website

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Twitter

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The Challenge

Bringing a fan favorite to life, especially one that debuted over thirty years ago, is never an easy task. Netflix and Dreamworks TV’s co-venture set out to accomplish precisely that with Voltron: Legendary Defender, reimagining the classic 80’s cartoon. The showrunners created an inspired new vision for a modern audience, expanding and improving upon the original narrative while still retaining its spirit. “We didn’t make the Voltron we saw, we made the Voltron that we remembered,” said executive producer Joaquim Dos Santos.

AvatarLabs crafted a franchise website and social campaign to drive awareness and subscriptions to support the show pre-premiere, in-season and between seasons. Our goal was to honor the franchise’s history and excite fans of the original series while captivating the young viewers who would carry on the fandom for years to come. Within the campaign, we sought to bring to our creative the same passion and affection found in fans’ memories of those first battles between Voltron and the evil forces of Zarkon.

The Execution

Our initial target audience was 30-40 year old fans of the original show. As the premiere neared, we would then shift our focus towards the younger demographic. To achieve this, we needed to remain true to the fun and irreverent tone of the series and showcase the characters and talent without giving away key plot points.

The social management and content campaign started early, and ramped up over several months. We managed the day to day content and community management on Facebook (the most trafficked channel) and then shared the content with the DreamWorks team who managed Twitter and Instagram.

  • We created various streams of custom visual content, starting with trading card-inspired graphics that appealed to the original fans. Accompanied by witty captions, we compared Voltron’s enormous size to famous global landmarks, putting him in environments next to Big Ben and Mt. Rushmore. We celebrated Memorial Day with a graphic around the five lions and the five branches of the military, and on Star Wars Day (May the 4th) we depicted Voltron playing with a gigantic ball of yarn that resembled the infamous Death Star. To draw the attention of younger audiences, we deployed action-based content with a series of static graphics and video clip-based motion pieces.
  • We took over the Twitter handle and live tweeted comments from DreamWorks’ WonderCon panel.
  • We ran a weekly Twitter Q&A sweepstakes; fans went crazy for questions that included Easter eggs from the show and signed limited edition WonderCon lithographs.

The official franchise website was optimized for mobile browsing and designed to be kid friendly; therefore, we created a layout with a vertical scrolling interface for seamless exploration on mobile punctuated with big, bold, dimensional graphics and motion. The home page gave viewers an upfront taste of the rest of the content and included an Academy quiz area, where young Paladins discovered which character they were most closely aligned with and earned downloadable badges.

We deployed a client-friendly content management system to populate the website with select news, events, social content and more. To pay homage to the original show, toys and culture, we developed a ‘History’ section using colors, illustrations and 2D imagery that reflected the 80’s cartoon and its classic characters and settings. Atmospheric audio added more fun and immersion to the experience.

The Results

“I LOVE EVERYTHING about this version/update of Voltron. I love the music, the episodes, EVERYTHING! Can't wait for season 2!!!”

“The new @Voltron is really good. Thank you @netflix for respecting my childhood”

“Excellent show! I watch it with my 6 year old son. Takes me back to being a kid in the 80s.”

“WE NEED SEASON 2!!”

Fans were thrilled, and expressed their love across social networks. Our campaign extended the show’s reach to over 275k Likes on Facebook, 20k+ Twitter followers, and 6k+ Instagram followers in the first three months. Even better, people who didn’t have Netflix were talking about getting subscriptions simply to watch the show.

DreamWorks was thrilled, and asked us to continue the campaign through to the premiere of season 2 in December.