To promote the premiere of South Park's Pandemic Special, we created an innovative and groundbreaking marketing stunt that no one had ever attempted before, while also navigating the executional challenges of the socially distanced world we've been living in during a global pandemic. We had to find ways to adapt to new consumer habits, behaviors, and COVID safety regulations in order to pull off an incredibly disruptive and impactful stunt that would grab the attention of consumers and press alike - and we did just that! The stunt garnered 4 billion+ impressions along with $100MM+ earned media value.

In the midst of a global pandemic, we were given 2 weeks notice to launch South Park's Pandemic Special to let fans know that the series was returning along with letting potential new viewers know the special was worth watching. South Park rarely puts out specials, so we needed a splashy element to our campaign, in addition to traditional media, that would make an impact in a big way. Nationwide lockdowns forced us to think way outside the box of traditional marketing events and activations in order to bring something to life that made sense for the socially distanced world we had been living in and to put something together that would be disruptive and impactful while also remaining COVID safe.

Once the idea to have the characters of South Park fill the empty stands at a Denver Bronco's home game was established, nailing the creative was key to ensuring the success of our activation. While we could have just put a few main characters in the stands, that wouldn't have gotten any press or social coverage to help raise awareness for South Park's Pandemic Special, so we decided to bring the entire town of South Park to life with over 1,800 custom character cutouts from all 23 seasons of the shows history. And the characters wouldn't have been properly brought to life in 2020 if they weren't wearing masks, so in addition to getting each of the characters in the stands, we added masks to every single one to truly reflect the COVID world we had been living in.

Due to COVID-19 NFL (National Football League) teams were not permitted to have a full capacity stadium of fans. In lieu of having fans in the stadium, many teams opted to have cardboard cutouts of fans to fill seats but those were often lackluster and unexciting. As we looked to promote South Park's Pandemic special we turned to the NFL as South Park fans have historically had a high affinity with professional Football. Knowing that we had to make an impact in a COVID safe setting and that South Park fans love football, we decided to bring our idea to life with the Denver Bronco's, South Park's hometown team, by filling the seats of their end zone with 1,800 unique cutouts representing the entire town of South Park.

During a Denver Bronco’s home game, the town of South Park filled the empty seats with 1,800 unique cutouts of characters from all 23 seasons of the show’s history. Execution began with designers to ensure that each character was properly sized to fit into a stadium seat and outfitted with a facemask to signal that the special would be about the Pandemic we were all living in. From there we worked with printers and installers to get all characters strategically placed within the stadium before kickoff. South Park owned the end zone and the unique characters of the show were noticed by those within the stadium and those at home watching on national television.

This viral stunt received national press pick up and garnered:

4 Billion+ impressions

$100MM+ earned media value

500K+ total engagement

240+ press articles, including coverage in: CNN, ESPN, THR, among many others

The South Park Pandemic Special ultimately premiered as the highest rated cable telecast of 2020 and was the highest rated South Park episode in 7 years! Additionally, it was the highest rated Comedy Central telecast in 5 years with 5.8 million total viewers, up 205% from last season! The special was the ?#1 Most Social Cable Comedy on premiere night. It drove over a quarter-million engagements across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube on premiere night alone, making it the most-engaging primetime cable show of the night.