by Anna Gamboa
FRANCE – “How to Survive a Zombie Attack (and Harness Cultural Trends to Grow Brands)”drew its own crowd of fans at the Grand Audi for the Cannes Lions festival, as MediaCom teamed up with the guys behind the world’s biggest TV show, The Walking Dead, to answer vital survival questions. Steven Yeun (Actor, The Walking Dead), Josh Sapan (CEO, AMC Networks) and Dave Alpert (Executive Producer, The Walking Dead) (pictured) revealed the cultural conditions that conspired to make The Walking Dead a major hit worldwide.
Pointing out how the show has become adept at storytelling, even diverging from its source material at times, while decoding (global) culture as AMC and Fox International partnered to take the show to different markets successfully, at its heart, the phenomena is rooted in its realistic portrayal of characters and the way writers/producers commit to these characters’ actions.
Part of the series’ appeal, it’s been posited, lies in the apocalypse myths cultures or societies like to refer to—the way Frankenstein caught on around the time the first successful human blood transfusion was performed, or Godzilla marked the anxieties surrounding nuclear tests. Zombie mythology was popularized in 1915-1934, and was given cult status with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. This mythology was borne out of a collective fear of many things: how we abuse nature, the recent fear of pandemics (MERS or SARS, anyone?), and was a critique of consumerism (or mindless consumption). So the question asked was: are we scared of the zombies, or of becoming a zombie?
The panel’s revelations showed how brands can use similar insights to become cultural phenomena too, as many viewers tune in regularly to watch it every Sunday night in the U.S.—and subsequently post their reactions on social media (much to the horror of the rest of the world patiently waiting for same-day releases). AMC CEO Sapan simply states that “Great craft makes people care about it,” while The Walking Dead’s executive producer reveals that they treat their characters like real people (they’re given deep back stories), and that their deaths aren’t just done on a whim, but are thoroughly discussed with sincerity. So yes, for those still outraged about (spoiler alert!) Beth’s death, please know it involved a tortured debate before they decided to 86 her.
The Walking Dead has become so popular it has it’s own after-show discussion show on AMC, Talking Dead—which discusses what went on in the show, with analysis or commentary from writers, producers and actors. It will even have a highly-anticipated spin-off show in August, Fear the Walking Dead. How important is fan culture in promoting these shows? Yeun points out that it’s an ecosystem in itself and has a life of its own, as fans generate, art, fiction, and even sport tattoos of their favorite characters.
Marketing the show can be a matter of digging deeper to find what cultural dimension resonates with them: hierarchy, individualism, masculinity/femininity, pragmatism, indulgence, and uncertainty. These allow a more tailored approach in certain countries. For instance: in the U.K., U.S., and Canada—countries that scored high in individuality and indulgence, the show approached these audiences by marketing the show as a “what would I do” sort of scenario. In countries that was high on uncertainty, but low on pragmatism—Spain, Turkey, and Brazil—The Walking Dead was viewed more as a form of collective therapy. Now you know whose hand to hold, and/or who you should be live-chatting with when watching the next season.
Before the end of the presentation, Mediacom ran a simulation of what would happen during a zombie apocalypse, revealing the safest places in the world to be during such an outbreak/pandemic. The top three countries to be (relatively) safe from flesh-eating mobs: Singapore, China and Germany. If you don’t live in these countries, plan your exit strategy—but in the meantime learn other lessons from the marketing-savvy presentations as the Cannes Lions festival progresses in the coming week.
