TNT television channel took part in VK Fest, a festival organized by VKontakte social network, for the second year in a row. The themed humour zone of TNT channel (part of Gazprom-Media Holding) became one of the most popular draws at the famous festival in St. Petersburg. The channel’s team prepared numerous special events with the participation of TNT stars, so that tens of thousands of festival guests could become a part of the TNT universe. The famous trailer “Popadi na TNT” (Get Into TNT), two filming pavilions and a 14-meter travolator were operational on the site.
The channel built a special stage at VK Fest and decorated it in the signature TNT style. Six full concerts were held on the stage during the two days of the festival. Each of them drew from 20,000 to 25,000 people. More than 30 stars from popular TNT shows performed on the stage, including artists from Comedy Club, Stand Up, Studia SOYUZ, Pesni (Songs), and Tantsy (Dances).
Moreover, TNT built a large interactive studio above the stage. The channel’s stars led a live broadcast from the studio, which was shaped like an ‘H’, over the two days of the festival for the subscribers to the official TNT page in VKontakte. The online stream hosts were the participants of the shows Improvizatia (Improvisation) and Comedy Woman, as well as actors from the series Politseysky s Rublyovki (The Policeman from Rublyovka), Ulitsa (The Street), and Univer. Subscribers to the TNT social network page saw concerts, backstage moments, and interviews with festival guests. In addition to viewing these broadcasts, VKontakte users won 680,000 branded TNT stickers by taking part in an online raffle. In the two days of the festival, the channel’s online broadcasts got more than 7 million views and its subscribers left more than 500,000 comments. The TNT page in VKontakte received more than 3 million personal messages from users. As a result of the festival, the total number of subscribers to the TNT page grew by 300,000 and now exceeds 4 million.
The visitors to the channel’s thematic platform at VK Fest could take part in master classes of the dance show Tantsy. One of the main entertainment draws was the 14-meter travolator on which viewers could become a part of the channel’s ID clips. Festival participants could record an ID clip together with their favourite stars and get on air at TNT, walk along the travolator and get filmed as part of the new season’s giant video, or play a role in an episode of their favourite series or TNT show. There were 1,500 such videos filmed during VK Fest featuring festival guests.
“The main aim of the marketing team was to surpass ourselves, to do even better than last year when we broke all possible records at the VK Fest 2017. And we managed to do it. We became, in fact, a powerful creative agency within the channel, working in 360 mode and producing almost everything in-house,” said Reuben Oganesyan, deputy general manager of strategic marketing at TNT.
