HBO’s The Last of Us is currently one of the biggest shows in the world, with 5.3 million Americans turning in for the season two opening episode in April, up 13% from the opening episode of season 1. Even if you’re not a fan of game adaptations or apocalypse-style dramas, you’d be hard-pressed to not have come across a piece of The Last of Us marketing in recent months.
Despite its multi-million dollar production budget, there are several key takeaways that freelancers and smaller business owners can learn from the television show’s global marketing strategy. The good news is that you don’t need large HBO-level marketing budgets to implement these.
Here are three effective marketing strategies that were used to promote season two of The Last of Us, which you can use to elevate your own brand and drive business growth.
1. Engage in innovative brand partnerships.
Collaborating with the right partners can be a powerful way to reach and engage new audiences. Brands that utilize partnerships as part of their marketing strategy have seen revenue grow by as much as 29%.
A partnership may be with another business, such as working together on a shared campaign or co-creating a limited product, or it could be with an influencer, sending them your product to create bespoke content on their channels. Whatever path your business takes, brand partnerships are a great way to leverage two audiences for mutual benefit.
To help promote The Last of Us, a key brand partnership for HBO was with Four Sigmatic coffee, experts in mushroom-based products. Because the zombie apocalypse in The Last of Us was caused by cordyceps (a type of fungi), they co-created a cordyceps-infused blend to promote the show. Freelancers can emulate two key elements that helped make this partnership a success:
- Shareability: Co-create a product or a piece of content your audience is motivated to share with their network on social media, not just purchase.
- Limited edition: As there were only a limited number of coffee blends created, there was exclusivity and urgency among fans to buy the product as soon as possible. For some fans, this could be seen as a trophy item.
2. Utilize the power of podcasts.
Podcast listeners are on the rise, expected to increase to more than 600 million people worldwide by 2026. It’s easy to see why – not only are podcasts accessible to people from all walks of life, but they offer raw and unfiltered conversations that can help build the relationship between audience and brand.
To promote season 2, HBO continued with The Last of Us Podcast hosted by Troy Baker (the game’s voice actor for Joel Miller, the lead character). This podcast offers a deep-dive commentary into the television adaptation, interviewing showrunners and actors about each episode to give fans an even deeper insight into the story and characters.
What we can learn from this is the power of humanizing a story or brand through unscripted conversation. By interviewing people the fans care about, they created a stronger sense of connection to the show. Similarly, freelancers could create a podcast offering exclusive insight into their business, sharing behind-the-scenes stories and authentic, unscripted conversations with guests.
If you want to start small, you could start by being a guest on other established podcasts.
3. Create anticipation and “hype” through content.
Finally, your content strategy should aim to build anticipation and “hype” around any new freelance service offering, driving demand for when it launches.
HBO strategically released its digital content for The Last of Us. They released teaser trailers, short-form videos, graphics with iconic quotes from the game, emotive character posters, and behind-the-scenes footage in a slow yet intentional way across their digital channels to increase engagement and anticipation.
The trailer for season two became HBO and Max’s most-watched trailer with 158 million views.
Even with smaller budgets, these marketing strategies are easy for freelancers and small businesses to implement right away to help build demand for their services, create online engagement, and foster authentic conversations among their audiences.
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