For Smile 2, Paramount Pictures aimed to reignite fans who embraced the original film while drawing in a new Gen Z audience. The goal was to craft a campaign that felt organic to TikTok—leveraging the platform’s interactive nature to create a story fans wouldn’t just watch, but actively engage with.
QYOU Media’s challenge was to translate Smile 2’s psychological horror into a social-first experience that blurred the line between fiction and reality. Rather than relying on traditional promotions, the campaign needed to feel native to TikTok, using the platform’s creators, storytelling formats, and communities to spread the film’s signature eerie tension.
At the core of the campaign was a simple but gripping premise: What if TikTok’s biggest stars weren’t just promoting Smile 2, but actually living its nightmare? By embedding unsettling clues, fueling fan speculation, and escalating the stakes with a dramatic real-time event, the campaign transformed TikTok into a stage for suspense, ensuring Smile 2 dominated the cultural conversation ahead of its release.
Paramount needed to generate fresh excitement for Smile 2, engaging a new audience while staying true to the core suspense and psychological horror that made the original film a hit. To meet this challenge, QYOU crafted an immersive, creator-led narrative that played out in real-time on TikTok, blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
At the heart of the campaign was TikTok star Arianna Hailey, whose massive Gen Z following (16.5M) made her the perfect protagonist. It started subtly, with hidden, unsettling smiles creeping into Arianna’s everyday content, sparking curiosity and fan theories. But the tension escalated—wherever Arianna went, the smiles followed. Collaborating creators fueled the intrigue by incorporating the film’s music, lyrics, and Easter eggs into their posts, pulling even more fans into the unsettling mystery. Arianna posted a cryptic video about feeling “off,” hinting at an unseen presence. The suspense escalated when she abruptly announced her retirement from social media, sending shockwaves through her fanbase. The move felt authentic, triggering genuine concern, while subtly pulling audiences deeper into the Smile 2 universe.
One major challenge was striking the right balance between immersive storytelling and audience trust. The campaign needed to feel real enough to spark engagement but not so real that it caused backlash. QYOU worked closely with Arianna to craft her messaging, ensuring fans remained intrigued rather than alienated. Another challenge was coordinating multiple creators to seamlessly extend the storyline, maintaining suspense and continuity across various TikTok accounts.
As fan speculation reached a fever pitch, the campaign’s climax unfolded during a high-stakes TikTok Live event. With thousands watching in real-time, Arianna’s descent into the Smile 2 curse culminated in her eerie transformation—her expression twisting into the film’s signature sinister grin. Collaborating creators attempted a dramatic “rescue,” but the ambiguous ending left fans questioning who had truly escaped.
By embracing TikTok’s interactive nature and creator-driven culture, QYOU turned Smile 2 into a viral horror experience. The campaign sparked widespread conversation, generated millions of views, and ensured the film dominated the cultural conversation ahead of its theatrical release.
The Smile 2 TikTok campaign delivered remarkable results, exceeding every key benchmark:
• 21.7M views across 11 posts and 7 creators.
• Over 2.3M engagements, achieving a 10.39% engagement rate—5x TikTok’s platform benchmark (2.08%).
• 90K+ direct clicks to the ticketing site, resulting in a 2.79% CTR, nearly 3x the platform’s average of 0.35%.
• Arianna Hailey’s “retirement” post received 4,846 comments, 31x her average engagement, sparking organic conversation and fan theories across TikTok.
• The climactic TikTok Live event outperformed 95% of comparable livestreams, captivating audiences and keeping them engaged until the dramatic conclusion.
Beyond TikTok, the campaign’s cultural impact earned it a feature in Ad Age’s “Creator and Influencer Trends Brand Marketers Need to Know About” (10/22).
At the box office, Smile 2 dominated its opening weekend, debuting at No. 1 and earning $23M domestically, with a significant portion of the audience in the 18-24 demographic.
By transforming TikTok into a platform for suspenseful storytelling, QYOU turned social engagement into box office success, elevating the Smile franchise’s cultural relevance.
