• by January 24, 2006

NBC Universal's USA Networks is amping up Web promotion for its original programming with exclusive interviews, video clips, blogs, and games at www.usanetwork.com. The cable network this week launched a new multilevel interactive game designed to generate buzz and loyal viewers for "Monk," its quirky hit about an obsessive-compulsive detective.

"Monk's Mind Game," created by Glow Interactive, New York (monk.usanetwork.com), is part of a big online and offline media blitz as the detective series starring Tony Shalhoub fires up its new season. The game, an online store selling "Monk" items, blogs, quizzes, interviews, and video clips, are all part of the Web push.

The game offers four levels of Flash-packed play, and features a series of minor tasks and scenarios that Adrian Monk might face. For example, when Monk is dining at a restaurant, viewers are given a few seconds to arrange the silverware just so, to wipe lipstick from a glass, find a clean fork, or tighten the lid on a salt shaker. An office scenario naturally asks a participant to arrange the paper clips on Monk's desk. There are 8 mini games per scenario, for a total of 32 mini games. The game includes a viral element whereby at any point in the interaction, a player can send it to a friend.

"We wanted to make a game for 'Monk' that would reflect the unusually obsessive traits of the character, bringing those personality quirks to the forefront as the central theme of the game," said Neil Voss, interactive design technologist, Glow Interactive. "Monk's character is overwhelmed with minutiae...We thought that by taking the small, everyday tasks that he might encounter in the course of his day, stringing them together, and portraying them in a fun, interactive manner, we would end up with a game that is high on comedy, playability, and brand relevance."

And stickiness. So far, for the period January 1-18, the "Monk" site has pulled in 1.5 million visits and 20 million page views; it's logged a 71 percent user return rate, over 1 million video streams, and consumers are spending an average of 5 minutes per session on the site. In addition, the "Are you Monkish?" quiz, created by Alloy, which also lives on the site, has been taken by 367,000 people, with 600,000 visits to the quiz. There have been 5 million page views served to the quiz alone, reports Jesse Redniss, director of interactive marketing, USA Network.

"Deepening our interactive content offering, coupled with on-air promotional support, has led to record-breaking site interaction stats," Redniss said.

USA's digital push comes as many cable nets race to build feature-packed and engaging Web presences to promote their original programming. USA's latest moves might be paying off; last week the return of USA's "Monk," along with "WWE Raw," its pro wrestling franchise, helped keep it at the top of the heap among all basic cable networks with an average of 2.61 million total viewers in prime time for the week ending January 15. "Monk"'s season opener on Jan. 13 drew 5.4 million viewers.

To drive traffic to the site, the network lobbed an extensive offline and online media effort for "Monk" with ads appearing in print publications like The New Yorker, on Yahoo!'s network, Real.com, TVGuide.com, and a variety of social networks and blogs. Search marketing and grassroots marketing were also part of the promotional heft. Print ads driving viewers to the interactive quiz asked, "Are you Monkish? Do you get upset by the fact that you have to disturb your perfectly made bed in order to get to sleep? Take the quiz at: monk.usanetwork.com."

The network also will deploy extensive offline promotion to drive prospective viewers and fans to "Monk's Mind Game." "'Monk's Mind Game' is slated to be one of the focal points in our marketing strategy coming out of the February hiatus during the Winter Olympics, as well as the new season in July," Redniss added. Next, USA plans to use Glow's game concept to promote the next flight of "Monk" set for July, and to deploy mini games within ad banners.

"It's a branded game which deepens our site content," Redniss said, adding that the game could be a template for promoting other USA shows like "Nashville Star," "The 4400," and "The Dead Zone" online. "Nashville Star," an "American Idol"-like show, is a likely candidate for a branded game by Glow, according to Redniss. From concept to implementation, "Monk's Mind Game" took 3 months to create, with intensive effort from Flash designers. So far, the Monk site on USANetwork.com has generated some 8 million page views this month, and it won't be long before advertising is a fixture.