Series Mania launched in Paris in 2010 and its apt moniker was a harbinger of the content craze that has emerged since. Festival founder and director Laurence Herszberg says that, when brainstorming the name at the time, “we could never have anticipated how, in one fell swoop, series would take on such importance as both an art and an industry.”
As enthusiasm for small-screen fare swept the globe in the ensuing years, the festival and forum moved to Lille in 2018 and the event continues to grow in both scale and status. This year, the festival will screen 54 unreleased series including 32 world premieres (all chosen from 396 submissions from 76 countries). Organisers estimate a record 3,800 accredited visitors will attend during the festival’s run, between March 17-24.
Major platforms including Netflix, HBO and Disney are all heading to Lille to unveil their slates for the year. Industry figures such as Amazon Studios head of international originals James Farrell and HBO chairman and CEO Casey Bloys are travelling from the US to take the stage alongside executives from powerhouses All3Media, Banijay, BBC, eOne, Mediawan, NHK, Studiocanal, Sony Pictures, ITV Studios, Fremantle, Gaumont, Beta and more.
The evolving event has become so big that Series Mania has an online platform — Series Mania+. “Some say there are too many things happening at the same time and it’s impossible to attend everything,” suggests Series Mania Forum head Francesco Capurro. The solution? “Everything is on Series Mania+.”
Beyond borders
Like the global TV landscape itself, the festival and forum continue to expand their reach outside of France and Europe. “We feel particularly this year that Series Mania is taking on a global dimension,” Capurro says, citing “a huge Canadian presence” and large delegations from Taiwan and Brazil.
The festival’s 2023 selection is also proof of an intercontinental shift. Its opening-night event Greek Salad is a series from a French director (Cédric Klapisch) set in Athens, features an eclectic blend of European talent (Kelly Reilly, Romain Duris, Cécile de France) and will land on a major international platform (Prime Video). Closing-night series Transatlantic is from a Germany-based US showrunner (Anna Winger), was shot in Marseille with a cast hailing from France, Israel, the US, Austria and Switzerland, and told in English, German and French for another giant global platform (Netflix).
Among the high-profile multilingual co-productions in international competition are Arte series Haven Of Grace (France-Belgium); Apple TV+, France Télévisions and Hulu Japan’s Drops Of God from Legendary Entertainment; Paramount+’s Fleeting Lies from Spain; plus the first Iranian series in competition, The Actor.
Marketing matters
Language may no longer be a barrier, but standing out in a highly competitive market is increasingly difficult for many of these series. The number of shows from across the globe at Series Mania alone is a small example of the riches in content available worldwide. There are more series being made, more places to watch them and more big names attaching themselves to shows, making competition for audience-attention tougher than ever.
For this reason, a key focus of Series Mania Forum this year is marketing. The inaugural Series Mania Creative Campaign Award will recognise a standout, innovative marketing campaign that attracted audience attention.
“Marketing is an essential part of the equation today,” explains Capurro. “There are more and more series and it’s more competitive. It’s not enough anymore to have a good quality series — you have to promote it so audiences can find it.”
This year’s conference programme will feature marketing-oriented discussions around topics such as ‘Why marketing execs are a producer’s best friend’; case studies of ‘Amazing communication campaigns for series’; and ‘The fight for attention on content: how series can better leverage social media’, among others designed to help series stand out from the crowd.
Marketing executives, industry creatives and producers will talk about strategies for raising awareness among audiences in a congested space and how to create lasting engagement among viewers.
Marketing has traditionally been an afterthought once series are completed, but panels will focus on how marketing departments are working closely with writers and producers to make their pitch decks more impactful and anticipate promotional material from the early stages of project development. Another event featuring the team behind Succession’s opening credits will discuss how to woo viewers from the first seconds in a series, and how opening credits are crucial to a show’s identity — musically, visually and thematically.
“Marketing is primordial, it’s essential. It’s not just a forum focus, it’s a true trend we need to address,” Herszberg says. “In the current market, there is such a profusion of series that even the media can’t follow [them all], so how can we expect audiences to know what to watch?”
While a marketing magic wand does not exist, Herszberg says “there needs to be an effort on the part of both platforms and broadcasters from the earliest stages of development — they can’t just rely on algorithms. They have to seek out viewers and give them a desire to tune in.”
Despite the volume of series, Herzsberg does not think TV production has peaked just yet. “Production is continuing. Maybe there will be less of an increase in budgets, but the momentum isn’t stopping,” she asserts.
Like film festivals, counterparts such as Series Mania are taking on an increasingly relevant role in terms of generating buzz around productions. “Festivals play a big role in getting the word out about series,” says Herzsberg. “It creates awareness, buzz, attention and loyal viewers.”
Series Mania’s modus operandi remains being the place “where series begin”, starting with its co-production pitching sessions, but Herszberg says it is not just about launching series and ensuring their quality. Crucial is “how they land, how they come to life and stay alive, and this all comes back to marketing”.
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