With espionage and subterfuge being the central themes surrounding Secret Invasion’s story and the series itself, Marvel fans have been on the lookout for any piece of information they can get about the upcoming show. We were challenged to create anticipation and intrigue for the series by encouraging fans to engage and participate in a unique social stunt ahead of the season premiere.
To create something out of the ordinary, we built an investigation board that mirrored the opening scene of the series. Within the board, we integrated clues and easter eggs from past and present Marvel properties, spanning worldwide with different languages, calling out key locations. To entice fans even further, we also hid a URL and password within the board, that would ultimately lead to a locked website in need of a password for entry.
We seeded the investigation board out as a six piece puzzle on the Marvel Studios and Secret Invasion social media channels. Our social rollout was the key to the puzzle’s success with each post releasing and being deleted within 10 minutes of its launch. Luckily our fans had a sharp eye and pieced together the puzzle as the stunt went live in real time. They rallied together to share clues and ignited their own theories around the easter eggs. After an hour, quick-witted fans pieced together the puzzle and their clues. Upon entering the URL and password from the board into the site, fans were granted access to the first 5 minutes of the Secret Invasion series.
Our stunt across the Marvel Studios and Secret Invasion accounts gathered much conversion across fans online. The activation resulted in 13k total user posts within a 24hr period across twitter, 1.1M+ earned engagements across all platforms, and 800k likes across organic fan videos documenting the event.
