Scream TV

With more television channels than ever in Canada, and new ones emerging faster than before, Zig faced the big challenge of getting Scream TV noticed on a very small budget. As in $50K small.

The agency opted to do something that would get folks talking. For three weeks in September, a ghost “haunted” an old Victorian house in Toronto, appearing at various times throughout the night. She was illuminated by a holographic projector and programmed to perform 40 different actions such as walking, looking down or skipping from window to window. They also released online videos of the ghost from both inside and outside the house, leaked the house’s address and started online discussions revolving around the ghost’s background.

In early October, the ghost revealed a message: “Get scared more often. Scream TV.” People saw her raise this sign at the house, in a television spot and online.

For only $50,000, over 2.1 million people discovered the campaign online, while millions more read about it in major Canadian publications like the National Post. Thousands saw her first-hand at the house. Scream TV, which had struggled to get subscribers, saw an immediate subscription increase of 36% (13% above its objective).

The folks at Cannes especially liked what they saw: the campaign won a Gold Lion in the Publications & Media category and a Silver Lion in the Stunts category, and Zig took Bronze for Media Agency of the Year.