Peacemaker’s partnership with Twitter was the perfect marriage of IP and platform. We took HBO Max’s badass, albeit mostly unknown, superhero franchise and made it the world’s most in-demand streaming show thanks to a marketing barrage played out on Twitter in excitingly edgy and unseen ways that leveraged the show and character’s humorous, quirky, decidedly-mature, and action-packed energy. Twitter was our playground for larger-than-life Spotlight Trends and trailer drops, hilarious content like Peacemaker discussing safety features with the Twitter team or squashing Twitter feuds, and features like a ‘Heart to Remind’ feature to send watch reminders to those opted-in.

With superheroes at the forefront of entertainment, Peacemaker, a superhero unlike any other, was not a household name. We needed to take a relatively unknown IP and break through the crowded marketplace and differentiate itself from the rest of the pack of superheroes. Additionally, our Premiere window fell within the second week of January which led our marketing efforts to overlap with major Holidays (Christmas & New Year’s), meaning we needed to generate major hype for a show during one of the busiest and most attention-cluttered times of year in advance of a January 13 premiere.

Leaning on Peacemaker’s introduction in The Suicide Squad, our campaign would showcase his unique positioning as “not the hero we want, but the one we got.” With John Cena starring, we’d introduce a fresh “hero,” build off James Gunn’s pedigree and tone, and take a comically self-aware approach to the unapologetic, and problematic, mind of Peacemaker. We’d also adopt the show’s MA-TV rating to take a no-holds barred approach that appealed to underserved fans still craving mature, quirky, action-packed content.

While John Cena and James Gunn have built-in followings and Peacemaker is our hero, we’d play up the humor and dynamics that make the wild, ragtag team around him equally as fun, irreverent.

By highlighting the imperfect characters, mature tone, realistic action sequences, and socially relevant themes that make the series feel unique and relatable, we’d tap into audiences who loved Peacemaker – even if they didn’t know him yet.

Peacemaker values peace at any cost, stating “I love peace more than anything and I don’t care how many men, women, and children I have to murder to get it.” So, to differentiate itself from the pack with a Premiere window that fell within the second week of January (overlapping with major Holidays) we partnered with Twitter, the world’s most notoriously un-peaceful platform.

We leveraged three Twitter Spotlight Trends to capitalize on key campaign moments (Teaser, New Years, Premiere Day) and extensive targeted media in alignment with Custom Executions (#ArbitratorOfPeace; #AllInForSafety) to keep users intrigued and aware, ramping up flighting during the Pre-Premiere Phases to build momentum during the Holidays. As soon as the ball dropped on New Years we dropped our trailer with a Billboard takeover in Times Square complete with live tweet reactions, efficiently and effectively maximizing our budget and tying-in our Twitter activation beyond the platform.

We integrated a ‘Heart to Remind’ feature into our Trailer Launch on our Peacemaker and John Cena’s handles which let us send reminder Tweets throughout the season to anyone who opted in through liking the tweet. On Peacemaker Day we ran a Times Square billboard takeover with Twitter’s Dive team right after the ball dropped, featuring the Redband Trailer release and live tweet reactions.

On Monday of Premiere Week we asked users to submit their petty arguments to #ArbitratorOfPeace, for Peacemaker himself to “rain down his adjudication” and squash feuds once-and-for-all on the notoriously un-peaceful platform.

In-season we partnered with Twitter Safety team to highlight new features across Twitter’s platform via instructional videos (#AllInForPeace) featuring Peacemaker and a Twitter representative. We also created 11 custom emojis that aligned with the cast and other elements within the show, took over the @TwitterTV handle, and threw Twitter watch parties for each episode.

Our Twitter partnership put Peacemaker on the radar by starting early, building excitement through edgy content plays, and keeping the promotional pedal to the metal leading up to and well through Peacemaker’s HBO Max debut.

Our 3 Twitter Spotlight Trends garnered 225+MM total Impressions and our “Heart to Remind” feature to watch Peacemaker racked up another 9.4MM Impressions. Our Times Square billboard takeover made fans billboard famous with another 12.87MM Impressions, a whopping +11.8MM over contract.

The hilarious #AllInForPeace Twitter safety videos continued to generate buzz with another 3.01MM video views and Peacemaker received 2.5K #ArbitratorOfPeace arbitration requests. Peacemaker was the #5 Top Growing Show on Twitter (December-January) and the platform’s #10 Most Talked About Show (January).

Our Twitter popularity carried over; Peacemaker premiered on HBO Max on January 13 and by 1/22 it was the world’s most in-demand streaming series. Mission Accomplished.