Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Chan­nel has devel­oped an inter­ac­tive, immer­sive con­tent site around their forth­com­ing movie, “Killing Jesus”. The web­site is designed to cre­ate aware­ness about the film before it pre­mieres and also boost engage­ment after peo­ple have watched the movie. The TV chan­nels use of sec­ond-screen con­tent inte­grates online/offline con­tent, while also pro­vid­ing a thrilling inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence that com­ple­ments the pro­duc­tion. What can mar­keters learn from the “Killing Jesus” web­site?

Nation­al Geo­graph­ic has high expec­ta­tions for its “Killing Jesus” movie – and a web­site of Bib­li­cal pro­por­tions to match.

Based on the 2013 book authored by Bill O’Reil­ly and Mar­tin Dugard, the tele­vi­sion film detail­ing the life and cru­ci­fix­ion of Jesus will air March 29 as a three-hour minis­eries.

Last year, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s “The Bible” attract­ed 13.2 mil­lion view­ers, lead­ing pro­duc­ers to invest in a sec­ond big-bud­get Chris­t­ian themed series. Now the net­work is doing their utmost to ampli­fy reach and audi­ence engage­ment ahead of the pre­miere, and also encour­age sus­tained long-term engage­ment and aware­ness, long after the show has been broad­cast.

Here’s an ani­mat­ed video teas­er for the site:

Second-Screen Content Experiences Create More Engagement

It can be chal­leng­ing for brands to con­nect user expe­ri­ences between moments con­sumers are watch­ing tele­vi­sion, to moments they expe­ri­ence dig­i­tal media online. But brands that deliv­er excel­lent sec­ond-screen expe­ri­ences will ben­e­fit from data insights and inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties.

• 75 per­cent of smart­phone and tablet users engage with sec­ond-screen con­tent more than once a month as they watch TV, accord­ing to Nielsen.
• Users who con­sume con­tent via a sec­ond screen are 26 per­cent more engaged than those who only view tele­vi­sion, accord­ing to an Adweek study.

The result of sec­ond-screen engage­ment, as one Deloitte com­mu­ni­ty man­ag­er said, is that “in addi­tion to the deep­er engage­ment and height­ened aware­ness of your brand, you also gain insights through apps and social media that can be used to inform your future adver­tis­ing and social con­tent.”

5 Takeaways From The ‘Killing Jesus’ Website

1. Give Your Audience Rich Content Experiences

Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s web expe­ri­ence fea­tures eight chap­ters explor­ing piv­otal moments in the sto­ry of “Killing Jesus.” Each chap­ter brings life to the enthralling sto­ry using a blend of audio, ani­ma­tion, images, and text.

To cre­ate a tru­ly inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence, each chap­ter con­tains three or four key scenes that can be explored from mul­ti­ple view­points.

“Giv­ing the audi­ence the pow­er to tran­si­tion between these key per­spec­tives in each chap­ter pro­vides a 360-degree view of Jesus’ sto­ry,” said Matt Zymet, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Dig­i­tal Media and Dig­i­tal Con­tent for Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Chan­nel, “[The approach] reflects the film’s approach of explor­ing the polit­i­cal, social and eco­nom­ic forces that led to the cru­ci­fix­ion.”

The immer­sive­ness of the expe­ri­ence marks a grow­ing trend for pub­lish­ers look­ing to deliv­er thrilling web expe­ri­ences. The rich­ness of the expe­ri­ence offers a clear val­ue propo­si­tion to con­sumers, and recent endeav­ors by var­i­ous pub­lish­ers have proved pop­u­lar. The New York Times’ Snow Fall and the BBC’s Spe­cial Reports are two exam­ples of pub­lish­ers that have pro­duced immer­sive con­tent to great acclaim.

Con­sumers rec­og­nize great qual­i­ty, design, and con­tent expe­ri­ences. Brands that thrill con­sumers with rich inspi­ra­tional con­tent that will make the biggest mark in the minds of con­sumers.

2. Tell Amazing Stories

The “Killing Jesus” web­site con­tent pro­vides an inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence that adds val­ue to the rel­e­van­cy to users. The blend of immer­sive design and first-class sto­ry­telling cer­tain­ly sets the bar high for all pub­lish­ers.

Devel­op­ing an inte­grat­ed web expe­ri­ence shows a brand is com­mit­ted to the pro­vi­sion of excep­tion­al con­tent and sto­ry­telling, across a range of both broad­cast and dig­i­tal media. By doing this, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic allows users to fur­ther enrich their sto­ry expe­ri­ences via dig­i­tal con­tent.

Increas­ing­ly, under­stand­ing the fun­da­men­tals of great sto­ry­telling is a cru­cial asset for all con­sumer-fac­ing brands.

3. Give Your Audience Something Unique

By pub­lish­ing an inter­ac­tive site that both encap­su­lates and builds upon the themes and con­tent of their broad­casts, they do so much more than mere­ly pro­mote the upcom­ing broad­cast pre­miere. The ever­green nature and avail­abil­i­ty of the site will con­tin­ue to nur­ture brand aware­ness and loy­al­ty in years to come.

Of course, this can be repli­cat­ed for all of the net­work’s big bud­get TV spots, cre­at­ing what could one day be a rich con­tent resource exhibit­ing the best con­tent pro­duced by the chan­nel. With the abil­i­ty for the con­tent to be enjoyed long after broad­cast, for Nation­al Geo­graph­ic the “Killing Jesus” web expe­ri­ence both builds for the future, and enhances the chan­nel’s rep­u­ta­tion.

4. Build On Past Successes

The “Killing Jesus” web expe­ri­ence builds on pre­vi­ous efforts by the chan­nel to devel­op inter­ac­tive con­tent that com­ple­ments a big-bud­get broad­cast. The doc­u­men­tary series “Live From Space” was accom­pa­nied by the inter­ac­tive site that offered real-time track­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion.

The doc­u­men­tary “Killing Lin­coln”, which first estab­lished the for­mat for “Killing Jesus”, was also accom­pa­nied by an inter­ac­tive scrol­lable web­page, blend­ing audio, video, and maps to tell a sto­ry with a pow­er­ful sense of visu­als.

“Killing Jesus” builds on the suc­cess of the exam­ples list­ed above, tak­ing an estab­lished prece­dent and exe­cut­ing at an even more accom­plished lev­el.

On top of this, build­ing on past suc­cess­es can often nur­ture a grow­ing lev­el of expec­ta­tion amongst users. The famil­iar will reduce bar­ri­ers to engage­ment as well as devel­op­ing loy­al­ty, and ulti­mate­ly brand advo­ca­cy, amongst audi­ences.

5. Make Something Newsworthy

Final­ly, there’s a great addi­tion­al ben­e­fit of pro­duc­ing con­tent that is excep­tion­al, espe­cial­ly for ear­ly adopters and those first to the mark. Pro­duce con­tent that is good enough, and it may even make the news. Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s effort was cov­ered by AdWeek as “the great­est sto­ry ever scrolled.”

The gor­geous art­work and ani­ma­tions were also rec­og­nized by Mash­able in a pop­u­lar arti­cle (over 2,700 shares at time of writ­ing) detail­ing the back­ground and devel­op­ment behind the art design.

Uniting User Journeys With Storytelling

With “Killing Jesus”, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic has shown us how a pow­er­ful, mem­o­rable sto­ry, when told across a range of chan­nels and media for­mats, can be the glue that unites screens, and con­nects user jour­neys. The beau­ty and immer­sive­ness of the exe­cu­tion deliv­ers a fan­tas­tic user expe­ri­ence – and as can often be the case with great online con­tent, the pop­u­lar­i­ty and suc­cess need not end when the broad­cast­ing of the show is over.

Do you think brands should be doing more to deliv­er immer­sive dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences?