Conoco—an iconic American fuel brand—needed to reconnect their brand to younger drivers. The only problem? For those younger drivers, liking and swiping and scrolling have replaced seeing and going and doing. So, we used their screens to convince them to look away from their screens and go experience the weird wide world.

Conoco—an iconic American fuel brand—needed to reconnect their brand to younger drivers. The only problem? For those younger drivers, liking and swiping and scrolling have replaced seeing and going and doing. So, we used their screens to convince them to look away from their screens and go experience the weird wide world.

Conoco needed to reach a younger audience. Its target audience is a difficult one to engage: 18-to-24-year-olds, often paralyzed by their screens, who embrace couch culture more than IRL connections.

They’re living in a world that wants us to stay, not go. It wants us to sit, text, snap, tap, fav, yawn, curate, retweet. Repeat. Until our eyes dry out from the endless stream of #content. Until our necks get carpal tunnel. Until our cheeks meld with the cushions.

Knowing our audience could be blind to marketing and skeptical of brands trying to reach them through #MillennialAdvertising, we mined through data about their interests and content they engaged with. We then developed social content series based on those insights, paired with strategic amplification and real-time tactics.

We created a buffet of bonkers social content—think Saturday Morning Cartoons on LSD laced with Tumblr code—to inspire our young, Internet-y audience to go do the things and see the stuff. Wary of creating #MillennialAdvertising, we made 63 original pieces of content that felt less like marketing and more like stumbling about an abandoned mini golf park in the dark recesses of the Internet.

The social launch drove more than 3.7 million social impressions and more than 1.2 million social engagements – a 112% higher engagement rate than benchmarks. In addition, it generated positive conversations about Conoco and increased net sentiment by 25 percentage points. Which is especially cool considering negative perceptions of gas brands in general.

The social launch drove more than 3.7 million social impressions and more than 1.2 million social engagements – a 112% higher engagement rate than benchmarks. In addition, it generated positive conversations about Conoco and increased net sentiment by 25 percentage points. Which is especially cool considering negative perceptions of gas brands in general.