Messenger and Instagram recently combined forces to make the biggest change to DMs ever, full of new tools to help our users have longer, more meaningful chats with their friends.
And with 2020 making us feel more disconnected than ever, we knew we needed to get the word out in a huge way, during the biggest messaging day of the year.
On New Year’s Eve 2020, we connected our audience to the woman who got them through this year with wise words, real talk, and the raw, unfiltered TRUTH: Cardi B.
We asked Cardi to step up to the mantle of Supreme Truth Teller and give 2021 New Year’s Reads: inspirational guidance via the new DMs, to show off the deep and meaningfuls they make possible.
Through the magic of a dynamic Cardibot, fans could message Cardi directly for mystical truths and words of wisdom for the year ahead. The chats were inspired by hundreds of historic Cardi quotes and featured dynamic custom content that would inspire friends to share and start positive conversations about the year ahead.
We kicked off the campaign with four teaser films — all housed on @CardiBTruthTeller — that got people talking and drove folks to the account. The memorable films were directed by Patrick Daughters and depicted Cardi B as a cosmic oracle, seeing the future from her planet. We made sure the films were relevant to our audience by hitting on issues that they cared about (making 2021 better than 2020, manifesting a positive destiny) with cultural nods and visual references that they’d understand.
Before we turned on media spend, the videos racked up almost 10 million video views on organic social channels and tons of comments. And, immediately we saw tens of thousands of account follows and chat requests a day.
And after all that fanfare, we knew we needed to make the Cardibot anything but basic. We created custom Tarot Cards inspired by Cardi B with themes like The Drip, The Unbothered, and the Hatatata that our users shared with friends, including gorgeous cosmic stickers and unique chat themes which were designed especially for the bot.
Our goal was to make a splash with this campaign and get people talking during a crowded time for messaging, and this campaign did just that. Each of the posts drew tons of engagement with comments, shares, and retweets from fans and celebs alike, with some NSF-the-Shortys tweets going viral.
We nabbed extensive organic press on sites our target audience actually care about (Dazed Digital, Complex, HYPEBAE, Billboard, and many others) with overall impressions totaling over 100M.
