Inside the Frasier Reboot’s Eggcellent, Pun-Filled Marketing Campaign

Will the real Frasier Crane please stand up?

With Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier Crane originally appearing in Cheers before getting a self-titled, long-running spinoff, the character has a fandom and history already built into the Frasier revival on Paramount+, which brings Dr. Crane back to Boston.

So in marketing the new series, which debuted on Oct. 12, Paramount leaned into that fandom, highlighting Frasier-isms from the show, cueing in on clever, pun-filled marketing stunts and even creating an actual Frasier-themed crane in Beantown.

For Domenic DiMeglio, evp and chief marketing officer of Paramount Streaming, marketing Frasier’s new act came down to “building a campaign from the core fans and working our way out.”

“It really was a new chapter in his life going back to Boston, and so treating it as such,” DiMeglio said. “And then really making sure that when we brought this campaign to life, that we leaned into the things that made Frasier Crane… Frasier Crane.”

With research including everything from digging through the show’s history to performing deep dives on Reddit threads, the Paramount team focused on elements that would delight former fans and attract new audiences in the show’s TV marketing.

Show-related phrases, a.k.a. Frasier-isms, appeared in black-and-white line art on billboards in major cities such as New York and LA; events included Frasier screenings and trivia at Boston’s Cheers bar (which run on select Thursdays through Dec. 7); and food trucks in Boston paid homage to the iconic theme song, “Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs,” by giving out free tossed salads and scrambled eggs to fans while playing the theme.

Further leaning into the show returning to the character’s Boston roots, the whole city of Boston was invited to try the series with a free 30-day trial of Paramount+, which fans can find using the promo code CRANE here.

And, just as the original series title card created an iconic look at the Seattle skyline, the new series added to the Boston skyline with the Fraiser crane.

“We just had a lot of fun,” DiMeglio said. “We had a crane raise a line art, an image of Dr. Frasier Crane in Boston, and, voila, we had the Frasier crane.”

But cranes alone can’t do all the heavy lifting.

The Frasier revival is a big swing for Paramount’s streaming service, rolling out in more than 40 markets globally. So, to achieve the proper reach and effectiveness, Paramount+ needed cross-company teamwork, with the marketing team working closely with the executive producers of the series and dozens of Paramount social accounts also joining in on promotions.

“The campaign overall was highly collaborative,” DiMeglio said. “CBS Studios is an amazing partner when we bring shows to life, and the executive producers we got a chance to work with on the show also gave us a lot of room to try things.”

That global collaboration is already paying off.

DiMeglio told Adweek the Frasier revival has been the most-streamed Paramount+ title in terms of subscriber reach in the U.S., as well as across international markets, following its release. It was also the No. 1 original comedy premiere for reach since the launch of Paramount+ and caused an uptick in numbers for both Cheers and the original Fraiser series.

Despite the early success, the campaign isn’t slowing down, especially with episodes dropping weekly.

A weekly appointment with Fraiser

DiMeglio said weekly episodes give Paramount “multiple bites at the apple to build buzz and excitement” as interest and social conversations spike with each episode drop. Plus, there’s an entire audience waiting to watch the whole series after it releases.

“In the streaming age, every one of our campaigns has a big binge beat, where we close out strong and try to get those folks that have either been undecided and or waiting for all the episodes to come out,” DiMeglio said. “So that’s an important beat to close things out.”

DiMeglio told Adweek there was no exact science to the executions the campaign carried out. At the end of the day, it was about connecting with fans and doing so in witty fashion, as Fraiser would himself.

“The ideas that came my way, the things that were executed, I would say it was just really clever,” DiMeglio said. “And I think this was the campaign that called for it.”

New episodes of Frasier drop weekly on Thursdays on Paramount+.