Entertainment > Audio-visual Branded Content
APPLE TV+, Culver City / APPLE TV+ / 2022
Awards:
Overview
Credits
Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?
We gave our fans an authentic experience that brought them into the world of the show by giving them an actual company benefit that they could use and even share.
Users also simultaneously became a part of the show's storyline, because as they continued to use the corporate GrubHub discount, they got to watch the boss of the company get more stressed out and disheveled, which then seamlessly teed up that character's storyline in the next episode.
Background
Mythic Quest is a show about a made up gaming company. But in social, it behaves like it’s a real company, by doing things that activate their devoted fanbase like sharing its employee’s meeting notes and live keynote presentations, and even letting fans take actual show props from their lost and found just by DM-ing the social media manager.
Describe the creative idea
We wanted to take our fan engagement to a new level, by giving fans an office perk that would normally only be reserved for "real" Mythic Quest's employees. So, we gave people access to Mythic Quest's Corporate GrubHub Discount Card. But to do this in a way that felt authentically in the world of the show, we created an interactive bridge between two episodes and their storylines, which brought users in on the joke and let them be a part of the storytelling.
Describe the strategy
Target: primarily males, age 25-54. Mainly followers of the Mythic Quest Instagram and Twitter handles, as well as the MQ Subreddit community.
Insight: People love money saving hacks, and thousands are shared on social media every day. We tapped into that behavior in a natural way, by faking a leak of Mythic Quest's Corporate Card password. We knew the second it happened, our followers would literally eat it up (pun intended).
Our social handles were kept in the world of the show, and written from the perspective of a fictitious character: Mythic Quest's new intern, who was responsible for posting all the content. However, the intern's excitement for their job often had them posting about things that they shouldn't be posting, like internal office politics, giving away personal employee items from the lost & found, and in this case, "accidentally" leaking the password for Mythic Quest's Corporate GrubHub Discount Card.
Describe the execution
In season two, the boss, David, is going through a messy divorce, which begins a downward spiral that was extended through an interactive storyline that existed entirely in social. On premiere weekend, MQ’s social channels “accidentally” leaked their corporate GrubHub discount. Within minutes, people noticed the “mistake” and shared the code, draining their $10,000 food budget in just two hours. This forced David to post a video response to MQ’s IG account urging people to stop. No one listened to David (which was exactly the point). This prompted him to reload the card and post another response, complete with a new GrubHub discount. Of course, thousands drained the card again. The more people laughed at David on social, and took advantage of his company, the more upset and disheveled he became. David’s trust issues then seamlessly teed up the following week's episode, where his world starts falling apart yet again.
Describe the outcome
By building an interactive bridge between two episodes, we invited our fans to not only watch David get emotionally destroyed on the show, but to be a part of making it happen too. And of course, charge some free dinners to the (almost real) company.
- Over the course of 3 days, the corporate card food budget was drained each day within hours of David's response videos going live on Mythic Quest's social handles.
- Thousands of fan comments, engagements, and shares.
- Instagram followers rose by over 30%
- Thousands of full Mythic Quest fans.
A huge opening weekend for the show and the platform.
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