Lifetime’s new program “How to Look Good Naked” has a sexy sound to it, though in fact its message is quite otherwise: how to feel good about yourself regardless of your looks.
But with a name like that, it was a no-brainer to come up with an equally flashy campaign for the show's Jan. 4 launch. That Lifetime did.
On Thursday, in the morning before its Friday premiere, Lifetime sent 160 women out onto the streets of New York, clad in robes and waving bras. The women showed up at Grand Central and other transportation hubs to greet commuters, and then rallied in Times Square at a gathering hosted by Carson Kressley, known best from Bravo’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and the host of the new Lifetime series.
Along the way the women handed out “Happy Nude Year” cards that included information on the show.
“When we saw the show we believed the only way to do this thing right was to stage an event in Manhattan that would cause attention,” says Lew Goldstein, co-chief marketing officer for Lifetime, who came up with the campaign along with co-CMO Bob Bibb.
Once in Times Square, Kressley and the women held a rally of sorts, attracting national and local media attention. There were also funhouse mirrors on hand to play off the whole body image theme.
The only thing that didn’t seem to cooperate? The frigid early-January weather in NYC.
“The women would have been in undergarments under the robes, but because it ended up being so cold they wore regular clothes underneath,” Goldstein says.
The stunt was part of a major promotion on the part of Lifetime for “How to Look Good Naked,” and it all seemed to make a point that resonated with potential viewers.
The show became Lifetime’s most successful reality show launch ever, attracting 1.6 million total viewers and improving its Friday 9 p.m. timeslot among women 18-34 by 165 percent.
