Just days before the big premiere of AMC's cult favorite, The Walking Dead, we figured we could capitalize (without AMC's permission) on the anticipation and excitement of this cultural event. So, we created the Official Century 21 Home Zombie Proofing Kit. In other words, a box of plywood and a bunch of steel nails. We put the kit on eBay (that became our platform) and gave fans of the show a few days to bid to win it. The auction heated up as the kit was mentioned in The Walking Dead blogs and fan forums. The day after the show's premiere, the auction ended at $104.50 (the materials cost about $25) and all proceeds were donated to Century 21's partner charity, Easter Seals. And the lucky winner's home was ready for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
The objective of the Century 21 Home Zombie Kit was twofold: Help raise money for Easter Seals and, most importantly, protect someone's house against a zombie apocalypse. By creating the whole experience within an Ebay page, we were able to not only raise money for a good cause, but we also made a fun and simple singular destination that used someone else's platform to host our own idea. Within hours the Ebay page was featured on Fast Company's Co.Create, AdAge's Creativity, and multiple Walking Dead fan forums. The official Walking Dead Twitter account also tweeted the Ebay link which drove even more traffic and helped drive up the bidding war. Overall, we took a brand that had absolutely nothing to do with zombies and made it relevant and newsworthy simply by leveraging a pop culture event that was happening just a few days later: the Walking Dead season premiere.
