Netflix and Ben & Jerry's Punch Line Hotline is audio Entertainment that people voluntarily call and enjoy, just as you would watch a film or listen to music. It consists of over 30 minutes of original comedy written and recorded by Netflix comedians Wanda Sykes, Fortune Feimster, and Aparna Nancherla, specifically for the Punch Line Hotline. It was marketed as Entertainment, with digital and social paid media, and out-of-home around Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta inviting people to call in and laugh. If they were lucky, get free Punch Line ice cream delivered to their door.

Ben & Jerry's and Netflix were launching their fourth flavor together as part of the Netflix and Ben & Jerry's "Four Pint Deal." Punch Line ice cream is a comedic duo of Brown Butter Bourbon & Almond Ice Creams with Roasted Almonds & Chuckles of Cherries, inspired by the "Netflix is a Joke" comedy platform.

Since Netflix doesn't run native ads, to support the launch, we were tasked with tapping into the fan love for Netflix comedy and finding a unique way to bring the campaign to life as Entertainment that fans would seek out and engage with.

Netflix and Ben & Jerry's are uniquely positioned to authentically and creatively highlight people who are changing comedy, the ones who are delivering the biggest "punch," if you will. They were looking for comedians who are relatable, inspiring, and who provide powerful messages through their humor.

To showcase the Netflix comedy platform, Netflix is A Joke, and introduce people to Ben & Jerry's new Netflix-themed flavor, "Punch Line," we wanted to get people's attention by making them laugh. With the pandemic prohibiting most people from seeing comedy live, we gave them a hotline they could call from anywhere for jokes and ice cream— The Punch Line Hotline. Netflix Is A Joke comedians Wanda Sykes, Fortune Feimster, and Aparna Nancherla wrote and recorded over 30 minutes of comedy for the Punch Line Hotline. We then promoted the hotline like other (less-funny) 1-800 hotlines — on billboards, bus benches, and television commercials, creating a uniquely delicious audio-entertainment-based campaign.

2020 was a challenging year for most people. And the advertising during the pandemic seemed to offer empty sympathy via countless "during these difficult times..." advertisements. With a comedy brand and an ice cream brand, we saw an opportunity to do something different by giving people what Netflix Is A Joke and Ben & Jerry's do best — jokes and ice cream. With the pandemic prohibiting people from seeing comedy live, we created a hotline they could call from anywhere to get on-demand jokes and ice cream — The Punch Line Hotline. This much-needed break from the monotony was intended to bring people together through laughter.

The core of the "campaign" is the hotline itself, with over 30 minutes of original jokes all served up over the phone.

We kicked things off with a Twitter stunt, with @NetflixIsAJoke pitching @Benandjerrys some ridiculous new ice cream flavor ideas.

To promote the hotline itself, we created "1-800" commercials and placed them across connected TV, social and digital channels from December 2020 through January 2021, imploring viewers to "call now."

Our celebrity talent posted videos on social to over 3.7 million combined followers across platforms. Other Netflix comedians and ice cream influencers received kits and posted the unboxings on social.

Leveraging the new 'click to call' feature on Snapchat, we placed video ads to call the hotline with one click.

For Out-Of-Home, we bought media in major cities across the US where you would expect to see traditional 1-800 ads: benches, buses, transit shelters, and billboards.

The hotline exceeded expectations with hundreds of thousands of callers who stayed on the line for an average of 2 minutes per call! Most ads interrupt; this is entertainment wherein consumers called us and engaged with the content.

Over 125,000 people dialed in with a daily average of 2,000 callers, and 22,000 of those were repeat callers.

The campaign garnered 164 million earned media impressions across traditional online, broadcast, influencer, and social media coverage, with 22 million impressions in paid media, reaching over 12.8 million unique households.