Meet BoJack Horseman, the 90s family sitcom star who just discovered the latest place to become famous...the Internet! Did we mention he's an animated horse?
In order to create awareness and anticipation around BoJack Horseman, Netflix and Ignition built a unique multi-platform digital campaign that threw the show's internet-challenged characters into the social web. We inspired a raucous, brazen and downright endearing presence championed by the show's leading Horseman.
We thrust BoJack into social media's center stage with in-character Twitter and Instagram accounts while an official Facebook and Tumblr featured branded content. For fans sharing BoJack's appreciation for the web of yesteryear, we built www.BoJackHorseman.com — BoJack's personal website complete with pixelated graphics and a link to email the stud-lebrity's hotmail account.
Now, less than a year since launching, BoJack's social content has generated more than 54.5 million impressions and 5.3 million social interactions. In addition, BoJack has an active fan base of more than 300,000 and counting. And following the thunderously positive audience response as demonstrated by these as well as internal metrics, Netflix greenlit BoJack Horseman Season 2 which is slated for release this year.
The key to BoJack Horseman's success on the web stems from the waning celebrity's bewildering self-obsession and how well social media caters to 90s nostalgia and the fame-hungry. Ignition crafted both the character and the show's combined social presence to give the sense that this real Horseman would do anything — including reveal his utter digital ineptitude — for attention.
Voice and visuals were paramount in the success of BoJack's social presence. A team of Ignition copywriters mimicked the character's communicative quirks while our illustrators painted both BoJack and an array of contemporary celebs into more than 150 custom illustrations.
Precisely capturing BoJack's voice meant post copy could go beyond show quotes and basic branded CTAs. In the same vein, custom illustrations gave Ignition the freedom to create a unique show narrative on social outside the confines of the season's 12 episodes. If it looks like a horseman and sounds like a horseman, it's probably a good idea to follow him.
BoJack's social presence gave him relatable depth. Fans began to treat him like any other reality star, tweeting at him, commenting on his photos, and freaking out when he'd run into Nick Jonas at Whole Foods or Taylor Swift at the Arclight.
No stranger to Stardom, BoJack has engaged in social conversation with an array of his favorite celebs and brands such as Wiz Khalifa, Aaron Paul, Joel McHale, Jane Fonda, Chelsea Handler, Crystal Hefner, Playboy, Starbucks, and even Elmer's Glue (who assured him no horses are harmed in the making of their product).
The key to BoJack's still-growing fan base was and is in his reactivity. BoJack responds to his fans on social almost every day and has hosted fan art challenges resulting in fellow social users having the chance to #GetBoJacked by being illustrated into a post with him. And in the near future, fans will have a chance to actually play an extra in season two as an illustrated character.
This reactivity also comes into play with large-scale cultural moments like when BoJack posted an image of himself parodying Kim Kardashian's #BreakTheInternet post. BoJack's tweet containing the custom illustration garnered more than 614,000 impressions, generated fan growth in the thousands across all platforms, and had a Retweet rate of 8.78% - more than 3% greater than the closest contending parody post!
The popularity and success of BoJack's multi-platform social campaign hinges on the Ignition's rapid and high-quality creative ideation and output. Keeping up with the internet is hard enough when you're the one person clicking "post". Imagine how much harder it is to be an animated horse.
