Rachael Berkey

Craft & Creativity for BBC America’s Killing Eve

Challenge: A returning prestige show going darker in Season 3, a fandom that polices tone harder than any brand team, and three corporate handles that all need to talk about the same property without sounding like one account copy-pasted. The craft problem: be menacing and playful without ever tipping into scary or unkind. The unspoken complications:

Owned vs. Directed: At EA1, I threaded the needle: I directed the corporate account management and owned the Killing Eve voice outright. I developed the persona and voice of the accounts, working closely with our agency team and the client’s video production and press departments. I handled all live-tweeting, UGC, and community moments live.

From pre-season promotion that I turned into appointment-social media with timed and teasing content drops, through post-season response to a fandom reacting to the political climate through their engagement with a show that centered queerness and race, Killing Eve Season 3 presented unique opportunities to play, to comfort, and flex my own writing muscles when I had to translate internet casualness into corporate reporting to stakeholders at AMC, the show’s production team, and the BBC.

Approach to Voice: Killing Eve was incredibly fun. The directive initially (with Season 2) was witty, culturally tuned, and aggressive – almost brutal – but always without crossing the line into meanness or cruelty. It was the tonal opposite of previous clients at the NYC Mayor’s Office and earlier technology startups. As Season 3 progressed, the pandemic took hold, and political movements erupted, it also became a proving ground for being able to hold a fandom in the palm of my hand with a single account while writing for corporate and political stakeholders at the same time.

Outcome: