To support the launch of American Girl’s new 1980s Historical doll- Courtney Moore- Mattel came to ViacomCBS with an idea to tap into Nickelodeon’s kids and family fan base, and MTV’s pop culture nostalgia factor, to help introduce Courtney to girls and moms everywhere.
The brand wanted to celebrate the ‘80s in a big way, so we knew our content had to make a splash and be entertaining enough to excite kids and their still rad MTV-loving parents- all while putting Courtney front and center and leaving our audience wanting more. We built a full campaign with content running across several Nickelodeon and Mattel platforms, and it was all anchored in a hero ‘80s inspired piece of custom branded programming on Nickelodeon’s YouTube channel.
With music videos being such a big part of the ‘80s experience, we wanted to celebrate Courtney’s iconic decade by making one of our own, starring her! For this custom piece of branded content, we looked to Nickelodeon’s YouTube channel as our platform, knowing the goal was to reach young girls and their moms.
To ensure the piece felt organic to the channel, we endeavored to create something inspired by all things ‘80s, but seen through a modern lens so that it could still resonate with our kid audience. To help do this we casted two modern day BFFs to help drive our storyline, and tapped into social media superstar, and Nickelodeon fan favorite, Hayley LeBlanc to lead them on our ‘80s journey alongside Courtney. Hayley’s reach and familiarity on our channel helped us capture the attention of our girl fans, and her background as a dancer made her the perfect match for our unique ‘80s inspired TikTok style choreography that was created specifically for this.
Equally as important as resonating with kids, another key approach was to reach moms as well by leaning heavily into ‘80s nostalgia. This involved everything from ‘80s inspired hair and makeup, wardrobe, editing techniques, the iconic retro MTV logo peppered throughout the piece, and most importantly our soundtrack to it all- Cyndi Lauper’s ‘80s anthem “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, which we licensed for the duration of the campaign.
With a high energy music video set to a song that’s all too familiar with moms, but still as relevant as ever for girls in 2020, we were able to create an entertaining piece of content that introduced Courtney to Nickelodeon fans everywhere.
The video delivered a total of 7,083,392 impressions (143% over delivery on our campaign impression guarantee) and 3,227,861 video views (10.67% over delivery on our campaign view guarantee). Along with the impressions and total views over delivery, the video delivered an overall 45.57% video view rate and an overall 16.55% video completion rate – which were both in-line with our performance benchmarks for the Nickelodeon channel.
This strong media performance proved that our strategy of appealing to our kid audience with top tier talent who they know and love, while giving moms a walk down memory lane, not only worked but brought American Girl’s newest doll to the homes of families everywhere.
