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Bravo Top Chef promo uses mobile to increase engagement

Bravo gave fans an inside view and chance to watch the season six finale among their favorite contestants with a virtual viewing party for "Top Chef: Las Vegas."

Fans of the show were able to voice their opinions on the series through Twitter, Facebook Connect and live mobile chat. Bravo viewers also got the chance to interact directly with their favorite Top Chef judges and chefs live when they joined the party by tweeting their comments during the finale or by following Twitter.com/BravoTV, and answering live viewer questions via mobile and online chats.

?Top Chef fans are passionate about the content, so we decided to build on their engagement by creating a social phenomenon,? said Tory Brody, director of communications at Bravo, New York. ?The Ultimate Virtual Viewing party created a social hub with multiple touch points across many platforms to allow as many layers of engagement as possible.

?The idea was to include the fans in the experience, strengthening their engagement and loyalty to the Top Chef series,? she said. ?We also wanted to offer our advertiser, Salon.com, real custom sponsorship opportunity around our social medium phenomenon, using all levels of digital engagement for their brand to interact with our users.

?Social media, advertising and the relationship with the fans is an evolving relationship, so this was a great opportunity to experiment in a new space.? 

Bravo is a program service of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment, a division of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience.

Salon.com sponsors Bravo
Bravo partnered with Salon.com as the exclusive sponsor of the ultimate virtual viewing party with elements that include branding on pre-event promotion across all NBCU sites, as well as branding across all event platforms ? BravoTV.com, Facebook, Twitter, live mobile chat and m.BravoTV.com.

Salon.com will also create custom tweets to fans on BravoTV.com and on http://m.BravoTV.com.

The social media event, which combined interactive elements on every platform to bring fans the ultimate viewing experience was first seen on Bravo and continues to add an extra element to fans by bringing the series off the TV screen and directly into the viewers' homes.

The first virtual viewing party held for "The Real Housewives of New York City" won the prestigious MMA Global Mobile Marketing Award.

The virtual viewing party results were phenomenal, per Bravo. Fans truly responded to this innovation around social media. 

Bravo saw an increased level of engagement with its Top Chef fans. During the live event, Bravo generated 1.2 million page views, had over 20,000 Twitter followers and nabbed three trending topics on Twitter.

Bravo re-imagined its online and mobile experience and combined them with the social media sites fans can?t get enough of, Twitter and Facebook, to create one, comprehensive community destination.

By offering more content for our passionate and interactive fans, the Top Chef Virtual Viewing Party offered fans a fresh new way to extend their relationship with the show and establish Bravo as an innovative leader in the entertainment and digital space.

Fans received exclusive behind-the-scenes content from the Top Chef mobile fan club, and some got answers to their sizzling questions directly from the chefs on BravoTV.com and on their mobile phones by texting the keyword PARTY to short code 27286.

?The Ultimate Virtual Viewing party showed us that there is a real desire for real-time engagement as fans watch the show,? Ms. Brody said. ?They enjoy commenting and sharing the experience with friends and most importantly, telling their friends, which allows us to leverage the social media space to build even greater engagement.?