Case Study

Mean Girls Day: A Fetch Take on Facebook Live

And you thought last year was grool.

Assignment

Mean Girls Day (October 3rd) is a widely celebrated, unofficial pop culture holiday. As the digital agency of record for Mean Girls, we knew that in the second year of the show’s Broadway run we had to mark the occasion by going above and beyond the celebrations we put together in previous years. Our goal was to reach a national audience and promote the touring production as well as the Broadway show through a digital activation that would appeal to fans of the original film as well as the musical.

The Solution:

We concepted and executed a two-hour, fully-produced livestream of the Mean Girls movie, hosted by Tina Fey and Busy Philipps in partnership with Facebook Live and Paramount Pictures. The livestream utilized brand new, as-yet unreleased Facebook Live interactive features and was supported by a full day of digital content.

To drive awareness of the livestream, we leveraged two key media partnerships: YouTube and Facebook. Due to our strong partnership with Google, we had the opportunity to purchase the YouTube masthead, which had recently become available to buy on CPM with targeting layers added as opposed to a flat rate for the day. Mean Girls was the first show on Broadway to leverage this placement to reach the right audience in a high impact way. Additionally, because of our early adoption of the new Facebook Live tools and the strength of our relationship with the platform, Facebook provided additional paid media placements to drive tune-in at no cost .

When the time came for the actual livestream, we invited the community to join the conversation in real time through Q&As, polls, and more. To incentivize fan participation, we gave away tickets to the show to viewers who engaged with our questions throughout the film. 

To capitalize on the increased attention on the Broadway brand, we premiered a brand new music video featuring Broadway’s new Regina George during the livestream and released it across social platforms the next day. Within three days of the livestream, the music video generated over 200k organic views and 30k engagements.

To close the livestream on a high note, Tina Fey and Busy Philipps unveiled a surprise sweepstakes that drove fans to the show’s Facebook page where they entered to win a walk-on role in the production, a trip to New York City for four people, and many more prizes. This activated fans of the movie and the musical alike and drove awareness while bringing new subscribers and remarketing audiences into the fold. This sweepstakes received the highest number of entries to date across all of Situation’s historical clients and resulted in tens of thousands of new email addresses provided, with nearly 60% of entrants opting into the client’s newsletter.

The Results:

Mean Girls Day was a part of the national conversation across pop culture and Broadway publications from People and Entertainment Weekly to Variety and Broadway.com. Fans also shared their excitement to celebrate the day, with many celebrating by buying tickets or listening to the cast album. Many more shared their excitement about entering the sweepstakes on social, which kept the buzz building even beyond October 3rd. We’ve included a select few results that demonstrate how we made Mean Girls Day one to remember.