The Mayhem Sale literally hijacked a football game and turned it into a marketing event. And not just the broadcast. At times, social chatter of the sale usurped chatter about the game. Its unique integration changed culture’s view of what a social campaign can be.

For a low-involvement category and a brand that is seen as too traditional, Allstate insurance needed a nontraditional way to engage new customers.

The insight: Everyday, people fill social media with seemingly harmless posts. But the more people overshare, the more they put their homes at risk of burglary. In fact, we discovered that 78% of burglars are using social media to find their next target.

As a brand that exists to protect people from life's vulnerabilities, Allstate set out to protect everyone by making this issue famous. So on New Years Day, we took over one of the most highly-anticipated college football games in history, and held the Mayhem Sale.

We found one real couple of oversharers, Matt and Shannon, and while they were away at the Sugar Bowl, we made an example of them in front of an audience of millions. Shortly after kick off, Allstate's Mayhem showed up on TV in what appeared to be their house, and started selling stuff in a real-time social fire sale.

By the end of the night, every sold out, #MayhemSale was the #1 trending topic on Twitter worldwide, and an ignored issue became a top news story in just a matter of hours. Plus, improving consumer attitudes turned into action. The campaign contributed to an unprecedented 15% lift in home policy sales the first week after the event and carried through to an 18% lift for the month.

This one-day event led to the best January of home insurance policy sales in a decade. Every item sold out in seconds. Site traffic surged up to 8x our expectations as 1 million unique visitors clamored to buy. We experienced 33 million pageviews with the average user spending 13 minutes on the site. And the sale was only 4 hours long. Rapidly improving consumer attitudes turned into action as the Mayhem Sale contributed to an unprecedented 15% lift in home policy sales the first week after the event and 18% lift for the month. THe promotion was so appealing to our target that they shared it, repeatedly. On Twitter, we achieved more than 6 organic shares for each paid impression and #MayhemSale trended #1 in the US and globally. With 95 million social impressions, an ignored issue became a top news story.

Matt and Shannon are real oversharers. We found them through fake focus groups, then conducted follow up interviews in their house. With photographs and video from the interviews, we were able to build a replica of their first floor, decorate it to look exactly like home, and film a series of commercials and online videos starring Allstate's Mayhem as a “social savvy burglar.” We also built an ecommerce site where people could buy over 250 of Matt and Shannon's things.

On the night of the Sugar Bowl, we launched the Mayhem Sale. The campaign seamlessly integrated 8 sequential TV spots with e commerce and a massive Twitter program as Mayhem made his way through the house announcing new deals on Matt and Shannon's stuff throughout the game.

The team worked to ensure each product was pushed live at the exact right moment, while responding to social conversation in real time.

People fill social media with seemingly harmless posts about what they're doing and where they are. But within this behavior lies a home insurance vulnerability: The more people overshare, the more their homes are at risk of burglary. In fact, 78% of burglars are using social media to find their next target. Among adults 25-34, Allstate's largest segment for growth, this news isn't being acted on. So, we decided to use the very media in which oversharing behavior was happening to prove the power of social opportunism and teach about this modern vulnerability in a way that was fun and engaging. We identified an oversharing couple, staged a very public burglary in what appeared to be their house, and held a real-time fire sale of their stuff. Our goal was to grow brand relevance and increase home insurance sales.