Written by: Meghan Long
Spring of 2020 — an incredibly odd time in the lives of people all over the world. Quarantine was a time of making banana bread, doing puzzles, and severely lacking toilet paper. Many of us were completely thrown from our normal routines in mid-March, which led to finding new ways to remedy our boredom, whether it be spending quality time with family members, learning TikTok dances, or binge-watching new movies.
On May 27th of this year, HBO scrapped its mildly popular streaming services, HBONow and HBOGo, and created an all-new streaming service, HBOMax. This service is filled with everything from newly released films and classic movies to childhood-favorite television shows. HBOMax was initially announced last year upon the removal of the hit T.V. show, Friends, from Netflix; HBO announced that they would be obtaining the show for a whopping $425 million. They also obtained the rights for Cartoon Network shows, Studio Ghibli films, and Turner Classic Movies.
With the increasing popularity of using micro-influencers to promote companies and their brands, HBO has joined in on the trend by using college students across America to act as “campus brand managers” through Riddle and Bloom, an agency that uses college students to market for a number of companies. These campus managers are full-time undergraduate students who commit a certain amount of hours per week to their duties with HBO. Their main marketing strategies include promoting new TV shows and movies via word of mouth and frequent posts on their personal social media platforms, especially Instagram. They also have the opportunity to host giveaways, watch parties, and different activities through their Instagram stories in order to give away free perks to those who participate, including discounted or free access to HBO Max. I mean, who doesn’t love free stuff?
Though the campus managers are not in direct employment with HBO, both the company and the campus managers are reaping several benefits. HBO is able to widen its audience by making the streaming service much more accessible to college students, while the campus managers are able to network with HBO employees and gain opportunities for future employment and internship opportunities with the company.
Using micro-influencers is a very popular (and much more affordable) marketing tactic for smaller or mid-sized companies that are trying to gain a larger audience, so it is incredibly interesting that HBO, a multi-million dollar company, is using this tactic to generate a larger audience of college students. Using college students to promote HBOMax allows the company to save thousands of dollars because they don’t have to employ a celebrity or larger influencer, which could cost up to $100,000 for a single post. I believe that micro-influencers are the future of PR and marketing, and with a big company like HBO hopping on the bandwagon, that idea is only further supported.