How BBDO New York Messed With The Weather On Live TV

This week The Weather Channel has launched a new, completely re-designed, The Weather Channel app for iPhone—already the #7 most popular app.

To help build excitement and awareness for the app launch, The Weather Channel partnered with creative agency BBDO New York to create a multi-dimensional, integrated campaign incorporating non-traditional, breakthrough ways to announce the new mobile app, as well as to demonstrate its new design, vast functionality and to reinforce The Weather Channel equity as the most accurate weather forecast.

First, BBDO created wild, real-time postings that use a static medium to reinforce the accuracy of The Weather Channel forecasts.  Posters were printed to look like “Coming Soon” movie posters which forecast the specific weather in each city three days out.  Posters were literally made in a matter of hours, to ensure accuracy of the weather forecast and appeared in the cities of Chicago, LA and NY.

Next, The Weather Channel and BBDO NY staged an on-air green screen stunt. Actors in green suits surprised the on camera meteorologists live during the morning broadcasts of AMHQ with Sam Champion and Weather Center Live by playing tricks on them like tickling them with a feather or offering them floating popcorn—exhibiting how the updated app provides “a whole new way to mess with the weather.”

Beyond this, the campaign will also include an experiential element. This weekend, in NYC’s Chelsea Market, we’ve set up an interactive weather booth where people will have the opportunity to be a meteorologist for a day and play with the newly designed app. The best videos will be shown on The Weather Channel. The booth will be open to the public on Friday April 25th and Saturday April 26th.