THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Special Project

Special Project
From the 14th Annual Shorty Awards

Peacemaker: What Peace Sounds Like

Entered in Community Management

Objectives

Who the f#ck is Peacemaker?! By the start of the tv series’ first season on HBO Max, everyone now knows. We set out to solidify the superhero from a relatively unknown side character in the Suicide Squad film to a leading persona you can’t miss both on screen and on your feeds.

Peacemaker is known for a lot of things, and shutting up is not one of them. As the Peacemaker series on HBO Max reveals, there are many layers to this complex anti-hero. Despite his huge biceps, cool eagle sidekick Eagly, and a super handsome face, Peacemaker is kind of a lonely guy.

To endear to lovers and haters alike, Peacemaker finds peace in being himself - communicating directly with his fandom and community through a charmingly robust, troll-like, community management strategy.

Strategy and Execution

Before the series premiered in January 2022, people really needed to understand the man behind the helmet as more than the guy who “did that thing” in the Suicide Squad film in 2021. With the official launch of the show handles in August 2021, Peacemaker made his presence known.

Peacemaker speaks for himself, and so we let him. The accounts are a first-person approach in Peacemaker’s own POV. And he’s the first to tell you how great he’s doing. The socials are a way to know the REAL Peacemaker, to spread his message of peace, as he’s not just a pretty face with huge biceps.

Through an always-on strategy, Peacemaker replies to just about anyone. From the dedicated fans, semi-curious hipsters, prestigious press accounts, to the haters of peace. He remains unfiltered and unrestrained, and people often wonder - how the eff are the accounts getting away with this?!

Above all, fans develop a relationship with Peacemaker beyond the show, feeling connected to him directly on social, knowing he’s there for them to chat - even when you don’t want him to.

Excited about the series? He’s here to tell you you’re right.

Dunk on his crew member Economos? He’ll support that.

Hate on his character? Prepare to be corrected and ratio’d.

And even when trying to restrain from constantly responding about himself, he’s got his Eagly burner account to jump in, so yanno, he continues to look cool.

Even James Gunn, the creator of the series, is not safe.

There’s no escaping the peace.

Results

It didn’t take long for folks to start jumping on board the Peace Train. Within 4 months, our social accounts accumulated 148.7K total followers BEFORE the show premiered, and currently sit at more than 275K total followers and growing. Since August 2021, we’ve increased our overall following by 1066% and by early-February 2022, Peacemaker earned the #1 slot on Variety’s Trending TV chart

Our always-on, always peaceful community management strategy coupled with bada$$ content captured the attention of fans and haters alike, leading to more than 752M+ impressions and 7.4M+ engagements across title page posts to date. Our robust engagement plan included daily interactions with James Gunn and the cast- because who else is gonna remind the rest of the team who’s the most valuable player? 

We never shied away from a fight, whether it was to solve petty fan’s real personal quarrels during our #ArbitratorOfPeace Twitter activation; totally own Captain America in less than 280 characters; or to call out director Steven Soderbergh for saying that superheroes don’t f#ck enough (clearly he hasn’t seen Peacemaker in action). But we were also there to show a different side to the complicated superhero, through carefully curated creative and responses that teased a bit more vulnerability than you’d expect out of just a “walking tricep extension.” 

At the end of the day, it’s clear that Peacemaker’s presence on social is unlike any superhero before – but then again, he isn’t just ANY superhero. He’s the f#cking best.

Media

Entrant Company / Organization Name

Digital Media Management, HBO Max

Links