National Geographic’s QUEENS is a new kind of natural history show, focused on the matriarchs of the animal kingdom and produced by a women-led team behind the scenes, a rarity in a genre where women have been historically underrepresented. For the QUEENS social campaign, aligned with Women’s History Month in March, we set out to celebrate the queens in front of and behind the camera with a takeover of all Nat Geo social accounts. Collaborations with talent and partners were key to raise awareness of the show and reach new audiences. Angela Bassett served as both executive producer and narrator, for which she won her first Emmy award. We used exclusive behind the scenes interview footage with Angela to create several unique assets that were posted in collaboration with Angela on Instagram to highlight her involvement in the show and unique perspective and life experience.
Although Angela Bassett’s involvement is a major draw for this series, her role as narrator and executive producer meant that she was not necessarily visible to the casual viewer. While Angela was in the recording studio, we had the opportunity to record a behind-the-scenes interview with her, where she spoke eloquently about the context and meaning behind the series, and her authentic personal connection to the material. We incorporated the interview and show footage into custom social assets, including sizzles posted in the pre-premiere and Now Streaming phase which introduced the show and set the tone for the campaign. We incorporated footage of Angela as the queen from Marvel’s Black Panther in another Queens-themed collab shared by both Angela and the official Marvel Black Panther accounts. For International Women’s Day, we posted inspiring words of wisdom from Angela paired with clips of some of the incredible women from National Geographic shows. We communicated with Angela’s team throughout the process to ensure that these assets were approved for her account. We also coordinated with the ABC team who was working with Angela on promotion of 911, to make sure the posts would fit with her schedule. Angela attended our Queens Ball premiere event, wowing everyone on the yellow carpet with her glambot portrait, and giving us an interview that perfectly tied together our video recap of the event.
Working closely with Angela Bassett for QUEENS helped us achieve our goal of reaching new audiences, including Angela and Marvel fans. The Angela collabs were some of the top performing assets of the campaign, with millions of views, and positive comments about Angela’s narration on the series.
