The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By Steven Raeburn, N/A

November 15, 2013 | 4 min read

A special 7 minute prequel episode of Doctor Who, streamed exclusively online ahead of the programme’s 50th anniversary week, has garnered over half a million views within its first twelve hours.The short film featured the surprise return of Paul McGann in the role of the Doctor, the first time he has appeared since his single appearance in the failed reboot of the series in 1996.The event is part of the online social campaign created by ZAG, the consultancy arm of BBH, which has designed a digitally-led off air campaign to harness the excitement and creativity of Doctor Who fans around the world in the run up to the show’s 50th anniversary on 23 November.Paul McGann himself had contributed to the surprise by telling reporters in the weeks running up the programme: “I’m definitely not in it.”His appearance in the short enraptured the fan community, as the on screen dialogue referenced offscreen adventures available in audio format, prepared by Big Finish productions, drawing the adventures into the official canon.At the time of writing, the short has been viewed on Youtube 532,823 times.Showrunner Steven Moffat explained the reasons behind the veil of secrecy.“We were phenomenally secret with the making of it! And I’m sure some people are a bit cross that we were so secretive but the fact is, there is only one way to ensure you keep a secret, and that’s to keep it! So, we kept it very tight and we hope it all came as great surprise to everyone,” he said.“Well, we had our new ‘hidden mystery’ Doctor and I was thinking, what else can we do for our anniversary year… I thought… Why don’t we get Paul McGann in and regenerate him into John Hurt? I’d like to see that! I’d love to see that! And we had this possibility that we could do it as a surprise, so we got in touch with Paul who was dead keen and I’m delighted to say he was so happy to join in with the idea of keeping it secret. He was childishly excited about it.”The programme receives a global simulcast on 23 November, and will be shown in 3-D in cinemas across the world at the same time.