HBO's Virtual Insecure Block Party Was a Hit!

"Low-key thirsty, low-key season 4!" Issa Rae shouted to fans on Instagram Live before popping a very expensive bottle of champaign.

HBO’s 4th season of Insecure premiered Sunday night after a year and half hiatus – even though the series has thousands of “die-hards”, HBO still made sure the premiere had a proper rollout. Insecure strategically generated awareness and influenced behavior with several, savvy integrated marketing strategies.

Season 4 is a buildup to Issa's big block party, so the theme of this rollout is right on the mark.

Issa posted this flyer to her 2.5 million followers that gave fans a complete breakdown of the night. This allowed her audience to feel engaged and connected to the premiere.

Building this schedule was a strategic way to dominate the online conversation before, during and after the premiere.

Insecure also made sure to utilized its assets by having Co-stars, Prentice Penny, Yvonne Oriji, Alexander Hodge and Jay Ellis, post the flyer. Collectively this flyer reached 3.85 Million users.

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To engage the audience and set the tone, Issa Rae started her live promptly at 8:00pm ET. Given the fact that Issa rarely goes live this was a treat for fans, her live feed peaked at 40k views.

Not only did fans get to hear from the star herself but co-stars, Prentice Penny, Yvonne Oriji, Alexander Hodge and Jay Ellis, also joined her live feed to answer questions and promote the premiere.

Again, their collective reach is 3.85 Million followers - although the live never hit those numbers at one time, it is very possible that the live feed had at least 1 million viewers total.

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Since the global quarantine, virtual DJ shows have become a popular way the masses "turn up" while staying healthy. This trend landed perfectly well within Insecure's block party theme.

DJ Zaytoven with 1.8 million followers, hosted a live 1 hour DJ set for fans. This expanded the block parties reach to 5.65 million followers. Their instagram campaign reached almost 6 million users - this is a great example of how utilizing assets and taking advantage of current trends can produce a great PR moment. However the party wasn't over yet.

Insecure's watch party moved to twitter and dominated the entertainment trending topics, occupying spots 1-5 with over 352k Insecure related tweets. #Insecure was also trending topic #10 out of 29 on the world wide chart.

Magazine publication, Essence, also sponsored the live tweet party and lent their 405k followers to the conversation to match Issa's 1.5 million. As digital rollouts become more popular we are noticing the benefits of brand partnership and strategic sponsorships.

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After a successful twitter watch party (and a great first episode) fans were directed to Insecure's instagram page for the virtual after party hosted by DJ Jidenna with 1.3 million followers.

HBO's digital market strategy successfully, dominated online conversation, generated awareness and earned millions of streams according to HBO (exact rating numbers will be reported at the end of the week).

Has quarantine set new standards for content rollouts or was this digital strategy always the plan? It will be interesting to watch how upcoming shows will find new creative ways to promote themselves online.

Fans are now expecting more than a show "just airing". It could be possible that the future of promotion/rollouts will continue to be at this level of digital engagement even after quarantine in lifted.