Cannes Lions

BoJack Horseman Social Campaign

HI5.AGENCY, Burbank / NETFLIX / 2019

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Overview

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Credits

OVERVIEW

Background

For Season 5 of the greatest show that's ever been made on any network, we propelled the conversation around the greatest star Netflix has ever hired to new heights. And with BoJack Horseman finding himself in a whole new set of Hollywoo shenanigans, we knew that extending the story of the show onto social would get fans talking.

Idea

Audiences are used to experiencing BoJack’s personality in terms of the plots of individual episodes; the charm of his persona comes from how he responds in the ridiculous circumstances created by the writers. On social, however, there aren’t any writers or illustrators - aside from us, of course. So we set out to translate Netflix’s most iconic comedy character out of one medium (television) and into another (social).

Strategy

Format-shifting Bojack required us to run everything we did through one question: how would a depressed, poorly-behaved TV star would act in this situation? The only way this works, of course, is if you apply the filter to literally everything, from the mundane to the extravagantly important. So we did that as proactively as possible, always staying on the lookout for new opportunities to explore how an ill-mannered celebrity horse could complain online.

But BoJack isn't just some avatar of depression - he's a fully-rounded character whose pain comes from real places. So we made sure to mix some pathos into BoJack's pathology, finding ways to show how his life wasn't always the perfect picture people might expect.

Execution

We started small, showcasing BoJack in his off-screen time, promoting his show-within-a-show, and live-tweeting a full series marathon. But we noticed something funny: no matter what we posted, fans just kept pleading for S5's release date. Thanks to our filter, we realized that pissy celebrities would just go rogue - so we did too, responding to a random fan with the actual date, then showed the aftereffects of BoJack's decision with faux text conversations with Reed Hastings.

But we also made sure to show how BoJack's life isn't all roses by turning to an unexpected source: the Netflix user icon. The platform "forgot" to make one for BoJack, prompting complaints from the star and outrage from his fans. But, tragically, the worst was yet to come; Netflix ultimately relented and added a BoJack icon...but chose the unflattering shot of him sneezing.

Outcome

5.6M Engagements

208M Total Impressions

353,001 New Fans (we didn't want to round this because every fan matters)

We also figure that every single person with a Netflix account switched to the BoJack picture - everyone’s a fan of BoJack, right? So feel free to refer to the latest subscriber count x2 to take into consideration account sharing.

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