Chuck has been renewed.  And about time, too!  So… now what?

The fan campaign on behalf of NBC’s Chuck is shaping up to be the smartest one to date.  Yes, there have been online petitions, heartfelt forum pleas, and shipments of relevant snack foods (yawn).  But the Chuck movement is noteworthy for what it has done differently: make a compelling bid for the network’s attention by courting one of its major advertisers, Subway Restaurants.

Subway buys a lot of airtime during Chuck, and practically landed their sandwiches a role as a series regular in the show’s second season.  The fan-organized Finale and a Footlong event was widely covered in the press, especially after series star Zachary Levi did his part by turning sandwich artist and serving subs to some 600 convention-goers.

But the April 27 finale came and went, and though rumors were rampant, NBC was tight-lipped about Chuck’s future.  Ardent fans began wondering how to keep the ball rolling.  Over on NBC’s Chuck forum, poster Carlp007 suggested a charity angle, and a core group of fans swiftly zeroed in on the American Heart Association (AHA), a favorite charity of Subway, as the target for their efforts.

On May 5, 2009, the We Heart Chuck AHA Campaign was born.  The campaign directs Chuck fans to donate money to the AHA in the name of Chuck Bartowski.  At the discretion of the giver, acknowledgment of a new donation is sent directly from the AHA to either Ben Silverman or Angela Bromstad of NBC.  Thus, the campaign harnesses the energy of fans to a dual purpose: collecting money for an important and valuable cause, while simultaneously making a statement to Subway (and by extension, NBC) in a concrete way.

Unlike the blood drives organized on behalf of CBS’s Moonlight, the We Heart Chuck campaign works on a number of different levels.  “In addition to being a charity partner of Subway, a major sponsor of Chuck, it’s a way of letting NBC know we’re here, we’re watching, and we’re cognizant of the need for a television show to successfully market products,” says Dan Willem, one of the campaign’s organizers.  He’s also realistic about the network’s bottom line.  “We know that ad sales are necessary to make sure our favorite shows stay on the air and we’re okay with it.”

And why has Chuck struck such a chord?  “Chuck offers something for almost everyone,” says Willems.  Laurie Gregg, who set up the AHA donation page on behalf of the campaign, agrees.  For Gregg, Chuck’s blend of humor, action, and comedy provided a welcome hour of escape during a period of her life when she was feeling overwhelmed by responsibilities.

These Chuck fans have been innovative because they felt they had to be.   They wanted to get NBC’s attention, but none of them are Nielsen families.  “We wanted our viewership vote to count,” says Willems.  “Perhaps fans have discovered that for their voices to be heard, they have to collectively yell loud enough to garner the attention of the decision-makers,” says Gregg.

They are certainly starting to get the attention of everyone else.  So far, the We Heart Chuck campaign has attracted the notice of prominent publications Entertainment Weekly and Remote Access.  By all accounts, Subway is a very happy customer indeed. And in less than two weeks, the campaign has already raised just shy of $17,000 for the AHA.

And they’re not finished yet.

As noted by Zachary Levi, the energetic fan-based movement to save CBS’s Jericho may have been instrumental in getting the show a second season, but when there was no resulting uptick in viewership, the network lowered the boom.  Chuck fans will need to triumph where Jericho fans failed, either by giving the show a ratings boost, or by redefining what constitutes a successful show.

We Heart Chuck is making plans to attack on both fronts.  Over the summer, the group is organizing weekly “streamcast events” of Chuck’s first season (available from the wb.com), making Monday nights into Chuck nights even while the show is on hiatus.  Once the third season begins, the campaign plans to lobby viewers to make donations to the AHA timed to coincide with the airing of episodes of Chuck.  “This will allow disenfranchised, non-Nielsen viewers to easily inform NBC that they were part of Chuck’s viewing audience on any given night,” says Gregg.