Lewis creates TV/web comedy series for children’s hospital opening.
It’s not every day you get to do a comedy campaign for a hospital. But the opening of one the country’s most advanced new children’s hospitals was cause for celebration. It was the biggest news for Iowa’s kids in years — and deserved a campaign to match.
To announce the opening of the all-new University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital, we created our own TV news channel, Aktion News, an intergrated television and web video campaign complete with its own kid anchors, graphics, music, website, and social media feed.
Meet the Aktion News team.
To create an authentic look and feel for our station, we partnered with comedy director JJ Adler, one of the original creators of the Onion News Network.
Casting was vital. We had a definite sense of what we wanted our kid anchors to be like. They needed to take their roles seriously, with all the little vanities and intensity that come with the competitive world of television news, but still be kids at heart.
We wrote a backstory for each reporter, reflecting their own unique personality traits. We auditioned dozens of kids in New York and Chicago before finding just the right ensemble.
Here are other TV commercials and web videos from the campaign.
To create our studio and on-screen graphics, we worked alongside the professionals who create real-world set design, audio branding and graphic identity for TV networks every day.
Comedy TV can be tricky. One bad decision can quickly turn a humorous spot into an unfunny one. Every casting decision, every tweak of the script has to be painstakingly considered. And when budgets are limited those decisions become even more important.
Each of our scripts worked in key features of the new hospital, while changing things up to keep the stories varied and interesting. A children’s hospital serves all age ranges, which is why it was important to include in our cast a teen big brother who drives the news van, as well as a pint-sized political reporter.
And with Iowa playing such an important role in the 2016 presidential race, it seemed only natural to include an Election Report.
Every aspect of the campaign was integrated, with a microsite that completely mirrored a television news website, featuring humorous articles that delivered information about the new hospital’s capabilities.
Click here to visit AktionNews.com.
We even went so far as to create banner ads promoting our on-screen talent, leading to bios about each reporter.
The website also featured ads from our “sponsor,” University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. Clicking on any hospital banner led to pages on the real hospital site with more information about the new building and construction progress.
Creative and social teams worked together to create a six-month schedule of posts, promoting individual members of the news team as well as updates about hospital construction.
We love creating comedy TV, and we love creating an integrated campaign like this even more. It allows our creative team to stretch and challenge ourselves. But every aspect of the campaign was also based in research and careful consideration.
Done well, comedy can build awareness and affection for a brand, and can allow clients to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Working on Aktion News taught us a great deal. We learned so much about the value of insisting on the right production partners, and staying resilient and optimistic when changes and challenges came along.
One of the most essential elements of pulling off a successful comedy campaign is trust. In our case, we had numerous rewrites and team meetings with the client to make sure we were getting the tone just right. As long as everyone is on the same team and trusts that we’re all aiming for the same goal, you can keep the quality high. Our sincere thanks to a fantastic client who trusted us to do something different.
To see more of our advertising, design and branding work, visit www.lewiscommunications.com.
