HOW WE SENT THE NBCU BACK TO THE PALEOLITHIC TO FIND THEIR ANCESTORS
Marketing Campaign
8 NETWORKS. A DOZEN PREHISTORIC ANCESTORS. A VERY, VERY LONG FAMILY TREE.
It wasn't easy to take NBCU's networks back in time. Like, way back.
 
Luckily, NBCU has no shortage of beloved personalities with great genes...and even stronger ancestral lineages. Whether they're "descended" from a Crood or a Betterman, these ancestors helped activate their audiences, delivering Croods a winning release weekend.
 
Here's how things evolved.
Similarly to our Trolls World Tour execution, the goal of this prehistoric party was to trace the NBCU’s diverse gene pool all the way back to their prehsistoric “ancestors” with funny, engaging content that spread awareness amongst each IP’s native audiences. Our goals:
- 1) Integrate authentically across 14 properties from 8 networks, collaborating with teams across the entire NBC Universe
- 2) Activate core fans of each NBC property by tying their favorite personalities back to their Croods ancestors
- 3) Develop a fun, entertaining “family tree” that talent and fans could both enjoy
- 4) Stay true to The Croods’ light-hearted, hopeful message in the face of uncertainty
32 social beats later, we’d strung together a geneaological chart of paleo proportions — and helped drive The Croods: A New Age atop the charts, despite all odds.
Client NBCUniversal
Project The Croods: A New Age
What We Did
- Social Strategy + Ideation
- Social Campaign + Engagement
- Content coordination between multiple partners
- IG Story Quiz
- Graphic Content
- Video Content
- Copywriting
A Stone Age Partnership
Back at it with our partners across the NBCU Symphony, we paired over 30 personalities from 8 networks with their own prehistoric ancestor using personality traits and a host of other "genetic" factors.
A Family Affair
From there, we built out a proper NBCU "family tree" with videos, images, and interactive Story content to help the Croods and Bettermans reach and engage with a broad audience of fans from across NBCU properties. Which family did it better? That's lost to history...
Hope for Tomorrow
For many, Croods served as a tentative first-step back to theaters in months; for others, it served as the perfect at-home film on Thanksgiving. Together, Croods: A New Age topped its weekend box office projections, and proved out a new model for COVID-era theatrical releases.
STONE-AGED BLOCKBUSTER
In partnership with some of NBCU’s biggest characters and IPs, our campaign helped Croods evolve its theatrical release playbook for the pandemic, and delivered a top spot at the box-office on opening weekend.
- #1 TOP-PERFORMING FILM for 5 Weeks on Digital Rental Platforms
- #1 RELEASE for 3 Weeks at Box Office
- 83MM Impressions Possible Reach across Network + Talent platforms
- 1MM Impressions
- 408K Engagements Generated
