The TV reunion of Michel Gondry and Jim Carrey presented an exciting creative opportunity to audiences. Dave Holstein, the creative visionary behind the series, created a triumph of emotion and imagination in Kidding, SHOWTIME NETWORK's unexpected and inspiring new half-hour original series.
Our core objective was clear: get social audiences invested in the series by using relatable entry points to convey the show's unique premise.
To meet this objective, we established the world of Kidding on social by highlighting visual elements that spoke to the show's surreal style and united audiences through a collective kindness.
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Our creative strategy was to create a safe space that effectively communicated emotionally complex messaging while still leaving fans with a smile and watching Kidding week-to-week. Reflecting the vibrant world and multifaceted tone of Kidding, we created unique social videos with a sense of childlike innocence and wonder to speak to the honest, raw, and dark moments throughout the series. 'Arts & Quotes' Created by hand, our 'Arts & Quotes' series was built with the kid-friendly craft materials of markers, paint, and construction paper and animated through stop-motion. While bright and playful on the surface, these animations highlighted the sincere and difficult moments the characters experienced throughout the show. With this series, we also paid homage to director Michel Gondry and his use of a unique animation for each Kidding opening title. One example tactic used Kintsugi, the Japanese art of piecing broken items back together with gold leaf, to explain a character's emotional breakthrough. We applied this concept to a pivotal quote from the series to communicate Kintsugi's central idea: that, through breaking and putting oneself back together, one becomes stronger and more beautiful. This video successfully cultivated an in-depth discussion on social and garnered adoration from superfans.
'Man in the Box' 'Storytime' This weekly content series lived exclusively on Instagram Stories and called on fans to channel their inner Kidding creative. Every week based on episode themes, a creative prompt would be posted that tapped into the nostalgia for childhood and resulted in hundreds of user-generated-content submissions that ranged from childhood stories, to reminiscing about a favorite stuffed animal, to doodling one's 'personal puppet portrait.' |
Social audiences welcomed the complex themes that were brought to life through our creative approach. Fans praised the Kidding social media channels for "bringing something new to the table weekly" and thanked the show handles for "the wonderful feelings" the creative was eliciting. The creative for the series garnered 1.5M video views, with over 22 million impressions and 437K engagements. "What a beautiful thought. I'm excited to check this show out." is the sentiment that frequently filled the Kidding social feeds through premiere. As one of our fans reminded us, "kindness works every time." |
