Tell us about your role in the creation of this work.
As the Creative Strategist, I was responsible for leveraging key insights to develop our strategic approach and an overall campaign direction that best served the goals of our client, Mean Girls the Broadway musical.
Give us an overview of the campaign, what is it about?
The “We Made Fetch Happen” campaign was designed to celebrate fans of the brand and capitalize on the mega-influence that October 3rd still has on pop culture today, 15 years after the original film was released.
With a free fan lottery in place to attend the special performance, it was our job to extend the October 3rd experience beyond the walls of the theater and reach fans around the world.” In the 2 weeks leading up, we asked fans to tweet #MakeFetchHappen for a chance to win tickets to the October 3rd performance. In return, fans received personalized thank you videos from each Mean Girls character in the Broadway cast. On the day of the performance, we released 168 pieces of original content to reward fans of the show. Some highlights of our content included a Snapchat Lens, Broadway’s first Facebook Fan Group and Instagram Live trivia.
How did fans know if they succeeded in their quest to make fetch happen? On October 3rd, the state of New York declared October 3rd an official holiday. Tina Fey herself was there to receive the official proclamation and rename New York City’s W. 52nd Street—home of the August Wilson Theatre—to W. Fetch Street.
Which insight led to the creation of this piece of work?
When diving into the conversation around October 3rd in previous years, the common thread was that fans and news outlets still consider “Mean Girls Day” an unofficial holiday—the keyword here being unofficial. After discovering there was more than 164K mentions on Twitter alone the previous year, it confirmed the cultural resonance this moment still has today, especially on social. We knew there was a huge opportunity to be a major part of this conversation.
Tell us about the details creative brief, what did it ask?
With the heightened conversation around October 3, the goal was to establish a larger share of voice around Mean Girls the musical within the “Mean Girls Day” coverage. In addition, establishing a 360 approach to seamlessly integrate traditional and digital opportunities was vital in order to celebrate all our fans on a national scale.
What was the greatest challenge that you and your team faced during development?
With a show like Mean Girls, there’s no shortage of ideas. Our team had an endless number of ideas when it came to content we could share with fans. We knew we wanted to execute agency and Broadway firsts, but we had to determine what made the most sense for the campaign, our fans, and our client. The challenge came down to narrowing down the wealth of ideas into a cohesive story, which ultimately is a great problem to have. It made working on this project incredibly rewarding for our entire team.
What did you enjoy most about seeing this campaign through? Did you learn anything new from the experience?
The best part of this campaign was seeing firsthand how eager and receptive fans of the film and existing musical fans were to the content released. Our social contributions resulted in 179K engagements and 2.4M impressions on social. As a strategist, it was personally rewarding to see the direct impact we had on the day. Our digital lift led to the second highest website traffic since the show launched. The strong response and increased conversation volume about the Broadway show, reiterated to us that this is an extremely passionate community. I think our team would agree that the campaign’s results were a big success.
Where do you see this campaign going in the future?
The national tour of the musical is launching this Fall. With the help of our partners, we’re excited to take “Mean Girls Day” to the next level in 2019 and #MakeFetchHappen in cities across the country.