Play Along: Branded Games for Discovery & TLC

The Problem

A tune-in card tells you when to watch. A game gives you a reason to lean in now, and something to hand to a friend. Discovery and TLC wanted their shows to live between episodes, not just interrupt a feed. The work was to take each show's premise and turn it into something you actually played.

The Work

I designed and built branded games and sweepstakes that ran on Discovery's and TLC's own sites. Each one had the same spine: a clear hook, one obvious action, and a payoff worth the click.

• American Chopper: The Build-Off. The interactive hub for the live, two-night finale, keyed to the night Senior, Junior, and Jesse James squared off. Video, photos, and a live poll, "They duel. You decide.", wrapped around the Big Bike Giveaway: a sweepstakes for a genuine bike built by Orange County Choppers, entered on the same screen you watched the build.
• All Star Dealers "Photo Game." A jersey-authentication game for the show about sports-memorabilia authenticators. Study the historic photo, find the details that make the real jersey real, then pick it out of three near-identical options. A scored end screen handed back your level and a reason to play again.
• TLC "Wear It or Weep?" A dress-rating game for Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids. Viewers uploaded their own bridesmaid-dress disasters and voted the good, the bad, and the ghastly into a Top 10.

Impact

Each of these did the one thing a tune-in card never could: it turned a viewer into a participant. On finale night, American Chopper fans had a single screen where they could watch the build, argue in the poll, and enter to win the bike, so the show kept a room full of people leaning in instead of drifting off between segments. The All Star and TLC games ran the same play on a smaller stage: give someone a five-second decision and a score, and they will come back, upload, and pass it to a friend. The lesson stuck, and I carried it into everything after: the best promotion for a thing is a small piece of that thing you can actually hold.