Love Island USA season six had the nation experiencing “all the feels” this season. A reality show originating from the UK only found its footing this year, with NBCUniversal stating that viewership doubled this season compared to previous seasons. According to preliminary data from Nielsen, Love Island USA season six was the No. 1 reality series streaming in the U.S.
So, how did a reality television show finally find its footing after six seasons?
The answer is simple: public relations.
Here are the top five public relations takeaways from Love Island USA’s season six success.
- Attach a household name to your announcement
It’s hard to get the attention of top-tier media when your client is just starting their PR journey and isn’t a household name yet. So, what can you do besides changing your company’s name to Apple?
Partner with a celebrity to get the media’s attention and leverage your client’s expertise to keep their attention.
Love Island USA succeeded with this approach when they named Ariana Madix, a Love Island superfan and Vanderpump Rules star who was the winner of last year’s Scandoval, the host.
Bospar also saw success with this tactic when our client Healthline partnered with Dr. Fauci to create a live town hall about coronavirus. The result? One hundred forty-six pieces of coverage, including placements with top-tier outlets, such as Bloomberg Law, Business Insider, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, The New York Times, Newsweek, Reuters, U.S. News & World Report and Yahoo News!
- Friendlies will keep you in the game
Public relations is about relationships.
While the days of calling a reporter or even meeting them for a cup of coffee may be few and far between, the importance of maintaining your media relationships has never been greater.
This was especially true in Bospar’s work with PowertoFly, a client I had the privilege to work with. My colleague, Nick Yacenko, forged a relationship with Mikaela Cohen, formerly a reporter at CNBC, that resulted in a great piece of coverage and multiple media opportunities for other Bospar clients.
On this season of Love Island USA, contestant Aaron Evans exclaimed, “This isn’t ‘Friendship Island,’ this is ‘Love Island,’” after fellow contestant JaNa Craig was saved from elimination by her friends despite not having a strong romantic connection in the villa at the time. While Evans had a valid point, the show does become a popularity contest, as many contestants who haven’t forged strong friendships in the house are voted to be sent home.
It turns out that friendlies might keep you in the media and on Love Island.
- Reach your audience through the right publication (or streaming platform)
It’s a no-brainer that to reach your client’s target audience, you need to earn coverage in publications that their audience reads. If you have a client in the HR tech industry, you probably won’t reach their target audience by earning coverage in Glamour.
That’s why when Bospar worked with Gloat, a leading agile workforce operating system provider, on its Series C funding round, we focused our outreach on relevant outlets in order to reach its target audience. Our PR efforts were a success as we secured 84 pieces of funding coverage in outlets, such as TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Crunchbase, Yahoo Finance, Fortune and Axios, generating 1.6+ billion impressions.
When Love Island USA debuted in 2019, it was broadcast and streamed on CBS. This may not have been the best fit given the network has the oldest primetime audience among broadcasters, with a median age of 67.8. One of the contributing factors to Love Island USA season six’s success could be that the show is now available to stream only on Peacock. According to SimilarWeb, 52% of Peacock users are females, and 31.86% of Peacock users belong to the 25-to 34-year-old age group. With those stats, consider the target audience reached!
- Think in sound bites
Media training is a core component of every public relations program.
At Bospar, we ensure your message will be crisp, and you’ll skillfully answer the questions you want, steering clear of those you don’t. We even address what others miss: sharing ways to build rapport and trust, managing different personalities, “bridging” the conversation, and giving tips about lighting, location and how to be your personal best.
When preparing a client for a broadcast interview, we remind clients to think and speak in sound bites. Why? Because when a producer is editing your 30-minute interview for a six-minute segment, they’re looking for compelling one-liners. One-liners can and will make or break a story.
Thanks to the rise of short-form video content on social media, one-liners are now used as popular audio on TikTok and Instagram Reels. And this season’s cast of Love Island, especially contestants Leah Kateb and Kaylor Martin, have had multiple one-liners go viral. Whether it’s Kateb saying “he did his big one” or Martin expressing her frustration by saying “F***, Aaron,” social media users have turned these one-liners into trending sounds. In fact, 64.9 million users on TikTok have used Kateb’s one-liners in their videos.
- Social media is a soul tie to success
Social media is no longer an option – it’s critical to the success of most PR programs.
When Bospar secured coverage for our client, Realeflow, on KNVT, we knew our work didn’t end there. We enlisted our social media team to create a whitelisting program that amplified the reporter’s LinkedIn post, garnering the following results:
- 37,377 impressions
- 2,150 clicks
- 5.75% CTR (click-through-rate)
- $40.13 CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
This season of Love Island USA is also doing numbers on social media. According to Meltwater, from June 1 through July 14, 2024, Love Island USA has been mentioned on X:
- 136k times
- A daily average of 3.02k
On Instagram and TikTok, there are 89.9k posts and 82.8K posts leveraging #LoveIslandUSA, respectively.
Ultimately, a successful PR program or season of Love Island USA doesn’t happen overnight at The Hideaway. Instead, it takes practice, patience and public relations.
