In recent years, The World's Last Blockbuster has built a cult-like following on social media - it is the place for fans and nostalgia buffs to get an insider look at all the things that made (and still makes) a Blockbuster store a “beloved era.”

Blockbuster harnessed this community of super fans to catapult its first Super Bowl ad in many years to international notoriety. Social by design, the ad was teased, streamed, and amplified strictly on social, capturing an audience 9x higher than the actual Super Bowl.

At the height of its prime, Blockbuster had 9,000 retail locations around the world. But today, there’s only a single one left. As the last location of a once iconic franchise, this retail shop could no longer make ends meet just with their local community of film fanatics.

As a result, the store would need to reach the broader public — but use its active and engaged social fanbase to evangelize the brand far and wide.

The World’s Last Blockbuster would need to go big without spending big. Up against the world’s biggest streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu — Blockbuster would need to rely on its organic social presence to outwit its competitors.

The goal of the campaign would be to get even more local folks and fans through the door, but also generate press and publicity to generate awareness and online sales of merchandise.

Like the cockroaches that inherit the end of the earth after us — the world's Last Blockbuster will be standing long after we're gone. And they remained that way by outwitting, outlasting, and outsmarting their competitors.

So while the world's biggest brands launched 30” TV spots during the Super Bowl, we released our commercial at the physical store on VHS, inviting the rest of the world to tune in via their Instagram channel.

We spread the word to local, national, and international media outlets, who all couldn’t believe that in 2023, a commercial was being released on VHS. Consumers were flooded with memories of visiting their local video store or even their first job working at one. It tapped into memory and connected people back with the brand in 2023.

The World’s Last Blockbuster Store has a highly engaged and passionate community of fans on its social media channels.

With over 70,000 followers on Instagram, we focused our efforts here first on releasing news about the brand’s imminent commercial premiere.

We knew we had to hit home for this fan base first, 25-44 audience, then expand our reach across other social and online platforms like TikTok and Reddit to increase coverage and ride of cultural trends “old is new” trend.

Our content created a voyeuristic experience into the store and how they continue to operate in 2023, true to their hayday of the 80’s & 90’s.

After pinpointing Instagram and TikTok as the two main social media platforms to roll out the campaign, we planned for a slow burn of teaser content to spark curiosity and online conversation.

We purposely lead consumers down a breadcrumb of content two weeks before the live VHS premier at the store SuperBowl Sunday - purposely leaking day by day what we were doing, how, and when.

The date itself, 2.12.23, was a massive hook for consumers, and then the news of the release of the first-ever super bowl commercial on VHS made people look and think twice about what they’d be tuning into for Superbowl Sunday.

On the day of the event, we made sure to give back to Blockbuster’s community on Instagram by live streaming the VHS premier in-store; people around the world were able to tune in through a first of it’s kind physical & virtual experience.

Without spending one dollar in media - either on Super Bowl or Social Media - the Last Blockbuster Super Bowl campaign gathered over 2 billion global impressions, with full commercial being aired for free on multiple news channels such as Fox News, ABC, CBS, CNN, TMZ and many others.

Blockbuster's Super Bowl ad reached an audience 9X higher than the actual Super Bowl, becoming the highest ROI of this year's game.

Business for the store soared. The store saw historical 1700% lift in online sales - having to double up on staff to fulfill orders on one of the busiest weeks in the store’s history.

The commercial also made into desirable lists of "The Best Super Bowl commercials of the year", and hundreds of articles on outlets such as LA Times, Fortune, Vulture, Deadline, and many others.

In the world of Apple TV, Netflix and Prime, the world’s last Blockbuster had to compete with multi-million dollar budgets with the resources a small retail shop has. Giving Blockbuster a spotlight in today’s cultural zeitgeist, we had to put a spin on the status quo of Super Bowl ads that seem to follow an expected format.

So while big brands spent big bucks to capture millions of eyeballs during the Super Bowl with TV & Digital commercials, we proved that the store can also go big, but in a way only Blockbuster can; on VHS, premiering live in-store and online vs. TV broadcast.

Creating a commercial on VHS made the idea unmissable and undeniably Blockbuster. Harnessing the power of social media helped us further break down barriers to invite fans into the premier experience on Instagram Live, further creating an intimate once-in-a-lifetime.