Organic Engagement
Project background
Highlighting legacy NASA content, such as documentary series, helps to maximize the return on investment in time and resources spent producing such content. To achieve this, it is important to find authentic and organic opportunities to re-promote high-quality content across NASA's communications channels.
Creative process
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory created a series of documentaries detailing the history of the center. This content, narrated by voice actor Neil Ross, was primarily utilized as broadcast material for NASA TV and the 24/7 NASA Live YouTube channel.
Ross whose iconic voice and cadence are impossible to mistake once heard was also the lead narrator of the codex for the worldwide best-selling video game series Mass Effect.
Recognizing the opportunity to highlight the documentary series and appeal to fans of the Mass Effect series, unique posts were drafted that demonstrated NASA's appreciation for the series without using a "bland" or "corporate" tone. The post specifically highlighted the documentary episode about the Pathfinder mission to Mars, as Ross's voice is prominent throughout the episode and the reference to Pathfinder also alluded to the protagonist of the latest entry in the Mass Effect series.
The moderators of the r/MassEffect subreddit were contacted for approval and provided enthusiastic support for the post—featuring it prominently on the subreddit's bulletin, which has over 340,000 active members. The post was targeted for release in the morning, with the aim to trend on the subreddit before the N7 Day (Mass Effect Day) celebrations overtook the channel.
Final results
The N7 Day campaign was a success and received a positive response from the Mass Effect fandom who lauded NASA for joining in their celebration.
By the numbers:
The Twitter post received over 3,000 likes and was retweeted and quote tweeted over 1,000 times.
The Reddit post received over 3,000 upvotes and 80 comments, becoming the most popular post on r/MassEffect on the subreddit's most popular day.
The YouTube documentary episode highlighted received over 100 new comments and garnered nearly 10,000 new views.
