CONAN ON TBS
When Conan O’Brien left the big networks to shake up late night on his own, TBS needed more than a new time slot—they needed a launch that felt unmistakably Conan. By leaning into Conan’s offbeat humor, witty banter, self-deprecating humor, and cult comedy status, the result was a campaign that didn’t just announce a show—it invited viewers in, won over skeptics, and helped make CONAN one of the most successful late-night launches in cable television.
Conan O’Brien’s move from The Tonight Show to TBS wasn’t a traditional network launch—it was a cultural reset. Public attention around his highly visible departure from NBC risked overshadowing the new show itself, and viewers were not used to going to cable for their late-night fix. TBS also needed to reintroduce Conan not as a legacy late-night host, but as a fresh, distinctly cable-era voice—one that they could count on for the kind of investment they were about to make.
THE PROBLEM
THE SOLUTION
To reassure existing fans while inviting new ones, my team focused the general ad campaign on Conan’s strength: jokes. Conan’s uniquely dry humor and wild personality are what make him special to fans, so we used them to cut through late-night noise and get a few chuckles at the same time. The ad campaign was unmistakably authentic, totally Conan, and let people know that their old buddy Coco was upgrading to cable, not stuck in the past.
This was all well and good, but what about people who didn’t know what they were missing? For that, I knew we needed something more…
THE BLIMP.
It started, as all campaigns do, with a brainstorm. The comedic tone of CONAN meant that anything was on the table, as long as it was funny. So, swinging for the fences, I asked a question that would get way out of hand:
“What if he had a blimp with his face on it?”
The face (and giant necktie) sadly didn’t make the cut, but from that moment the CONAN blimp was born. Equal parts promotion and punchline, this orange behemoth embodied Conan’s larger-than-life approach to entertainment while creating a physical, sharable presence. The ship toured major markets across the US, generating widespread social media buzz, fueling conversations when it floated by, driving visibility with its bright orange hue, and making the launch of CONAN on TBS one of the most talked-about moments in late night.
THE RESULT
The debut broadcast of CONAN on TBS drew approximately 4.2 million viewers across the broadcast - a massive number for a late-night talk show on basic cable. But the proof wasn’t just in the overall viewership; of those, 2.45 million were adults aged 18-34 with a median viewing age of 30, ballooning to 3.28 million from 18-49. The launch outperformed The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman, as well as its cable competition The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central.
The premiere was seen as a successful transfer of Conan’s audience to cable, and TBS executives credited the show’s strong start to a younger audience and high social media engagement with the Team Coco brand.
The general tone and style of ads was retained by CONAN throughout its 11-year run on TBS, producing over 1000 episodes and establishing Conan as a beloved “anti-host” who has now leveraged his audience’s trust to produce even more wide-ranging and engaging projects.
