MOTIVATION: The Wilds was a buzz-worthy addition to Prime Video that audiences flocked to at the end of 2020, but Season 1 left one burning question for the fanbase - How far is too far?
PROBLEM: It was determined that growing and broadening show viewership with a campaign that gave audiences something to talk about while continuing to unravel the show's conspiracy was of paramount importance.
OBJECTIVE: Immerse the audience in the feelings of intrigue that catapulted this show to popularity during the first season and help them attempt to answer their burning questions for themselves. A social plan in combination with a custom text activation was designed to capture the attention of a larger YA thriller audience and keep our most loyal S1 fans engaged. Using text messages, we turned our audience into researchers, gathering information directly from the show’s primary antagonist.
CONTEXT: Season 1 revealed that the 8 girls stranded on the island are not there by accident. Unknown to them, they are subjects of a grand social experiment orchestrated by a maniacal mastermind - complete with secret operatives within their group of “stranded” teens.
BACKGROUND: In 2020, young adult fans flocked to this title for its realistic depictions of the lives of teenage girls. They built superfan communities on Reddit, Instagram, and Twitter to discuss Season 1, write fan fiction, and prep for Season 2. They felt a sense of ownership over the plot and characters of the show, often calling them “our girls.” Yet, we knew that Season 2’s story leaned deeply into how their male counterparts fared until the groups came together in the finale. This passionate group actively sought to influence how we marketed the show and never hesitated to let us hear about their dislikes. Definitionally hyperconnected, they value real-time interactions, creativity, and connections made through mobile.
CORE INSIGHT: Our recruited operatives have a deep desire to be seen as partners in our marketing efforts.
METHOD: Instead of fighting this energy, we decided to leverage it - making fans partners in the fictional research on the show. They tend to go deep into their passions, whilst ignoring everything else, so we decided to break the fourth wall. This allowed them to become researchers, working to gather information and figuring out the true motivations behind the study.
Using the theme of secret operatives and a phone number from the Season 1 finale, we created social assets to initially recruit fans. Then, we shared flyers adorned with the phone number and a QR code to superfans to post in their local areas. Via the Community text message platform, we were able to provide our recruited operatives unprecedented access to exclusives and a direct line of communication with the experiment leader - Dr. Gretchen Klein - creating an unholy alliance. To ensure our international fans could participate, we created a subreddit that posted this content on global fan pages since the Community platform was limited to the US/Canada.
We worked with the show’s Executive Producers to craft a script that let Dr. Klein’s personality and questionable ethics shine in every communication. The researchers were Gretchen’s notepad, her venting mechanism, and a place where she could dump thoughts about how the study was going on the island.
Our co-conspirators couldn’t get enough. We kept them guessing, stoked conspiracy, and had them questioning who could be trusted. Some fans even got personalized messages from Dr. Gretchen herself; however, all fans could ask questions, air grievances, and get an exclusive chance to feel like one of Dr. Klein's secret operatives.
By activating this way, we flipped the traditional marketing approach on its head - sharing everything from character intros to sneak peeks under the guise of scientific research. Our comms reached their apex when we unveiled a character that hacked Dr. Klein’s phone. They unveiled behind the scenes clips of the cast that weren’t available anywhere else - giving the fans that made it to the end a surprise and delight and allowing us to share this content while staying in-world. With endless entertainment at their fingertips, anticipation for Season 2 was at an all-time high.
By executing a campaign that was as creative as it was a hyper-targeted user experience, The Wilds: Welcome To The Grand Social Experiment kept audiences engaged and coming back for more. The campaign landed “some of the highest engagement rates ever seen on Community,” according to a Community representative, earning over 6M organic impressions, a 60%+ click-through rate ( 19.5% benchmark), and 13k retweets of the Official Trailer drop within 4 hours.
We leveraged all of Community’s unique features like segmentation based on previously seen content, identifying favorite characters, and gave fans content unique to their show interests which ultimately sparked more chatter on socials.
The supporting campaign assets like our printout flyers featuring the phone number (US/Canada) or a QR code to follow along on Reddit (International) reached fans globally with no paid support, but engaged superfans on socials to help print and post the flyers in their area. The QR code received scans around the world including, US, UK, Brazil, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Canada, Czechia, Philippines, Mexico, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Portugal, Sweden, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, and Peru. Across six social posts for this campaign on @TheWildsOnPrime Instagram and Twitter we collectively earned 329k impressions and 15.5k engagements.
Staying true to the fan-exclusive nature of Community, this campaign was the first place for fans to receive behind-the-scenes footage and exclusive content, keeping fans hyper engaged and sharing the content amongst their communities throughout the campaign and beyond - a true success.
