Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

I was fortunate enough to attend a briefing by Triona Campbell of Campbell Ryan Productions, the company behind the online soap opera Sofia’s Diary. The briefing is available on the IIEA website and please find it below on YouTube.

Couple of interesting points:

• Sofia’s diary is in profit before it begins production thanks to sponsorship revenue. The soap opera typically has five sponsors (there is a queue waiting for one of these spaces apparently), and as a result the show features product placement and even one of the characters is there as a result of a hair removal company.
• While Sofia’s Diary is an online soap opera that is primarily distributed on Bebo, the show has signed deals with multiple media outlets for promotional purposes. The weekly web episodes are also combined together for broadcast on Fiver, a UK TV Channel.
• One other interesting aspect is that they have also recently formed a partnership with iTunes after noticing all the comments from viewers wondering which artist was responsible for a song played in a particular episode. They receive part of the revenue from iTunes for the songs that viewers download.