In 2022, Adobe forged a collaboration with Prime Video to help build excitement for the new highly anticipated series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. In the process, Adobe teamed up with Edelman to create a custom, interactive TikTok filter using proprietary assets to bring the magic and lore of the series to life on social. The goal was to build awareness of the Adobe x LOTR collaboration, drive social interactions and engagement, and grow overall interest in the creative force behind the new series.
To reveal Adobe’s exciting high-profile collaboration with Prime Video’s new series launching Fall 2022: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Edelman and Adobe worked together to generate a big-impact announcement leading up to it through a digital activation.
Our target was Gen Z emerging creators and existing Adobe x LOTR fans alike, which led us to focus our launch/announcement timing on San Diego Comic-Con in July 2022, capitalizing on a captive audience.
We enlisted Edelman’s Middle-earth nerds, creatives, and social experts to think through the best way to make a digital impact, generate buzz for the series, and ensure we were connecting Adobe and creativity through this collaboration. The solution? A first-of-its-kind sponsored TikTok filter, launched during the convention that brought fans everywhere to Middle-earth, where they could create an Adobe-fied digital postcard to share on TikTok and beyond.
Accessible and social-first entry points were key to resonating with our Gen Z audience in an authentic way. We also activated two influencers to support the “Join me in Middle-earth" TikTok filter launch and encourage fans to participate.
We had a 7-week window to pull everything off, all while learning new tech capabilities and working with highly confidential assets.
Overcoming these challenges required close collaboration: both with our partners at TikTok who worked on an expedited timeframe as well as those at Prime Video who ensured the series assets were used in the context they were intended, staying true to the series – a true fellowship indeed.
Our audience made the digital journey to Middle-earth in droves.
#LOTRxAdobe filter lived for 3 days in the top three rows of sponsored/trending filters. At the end of the 3-day period, more than 3,700 new videos were created using the filter, with over 107.5M impressions, totaling 186k video views with an 11% engagement rate. These results exceeded video creation and video view benchmarks (as provided by TikTok) by 86% and 27%, respectively.
Beyond the numbers, the success of this effort was in meeting Gen Z creators and Adobe + LOTR fans where they spend hours each day (TikTok), combining platform obsession with content obsession (LOTR) to take them on a creative adventure like no other.
