When it comes to red carpet events like the Golden Globes and the Oscars, People.com is a market leader for day-after content like photo galleries and gossip round-ups. However, the site is far less competitive on the actual days of these events and the days preceding them. My team was asked to suggest ways to better promote People.com's content before and during red carpet events with a special focus on integrating more video and fashion content.

We agreed on three main tactics to improve event performance:  driving interest by using celebrity hosts, improving device support, and giving the event's earlier stages a more distinctive presence. First, to generate interest in pre-event and day-of-event videos and articles, we proposed asking one celebrity to host red carpet video and another to curate our social media stories. Each would be teased by a video series on their red carpet preparations and articles on the pre-show event pages. Second, we proposed better mobile support as the single most important way to reach day-of-event readers:  after all, viewing party attendees usually only carry their phones...and home viewers are unlikely to view both a television and another large-screen device simultaneously. Third, we proposed making each page template a stream of re-usable modules that could be re-ordered to serve whichever content was most timely:  video for the red carpet arrivals; full-page slideshows for the pre-show; and social media commentary for the event itself. Our resulting concepts gave a new definition to all stages of a red carpet event:  the event countdown, afternoon build-up, red carpet arrivals, pre-show, event coverage, and post-show.