Objectives

Anticipation for Back to the Future Day was high, but turning those strong feelings about the franchise into sales required new creativity and planning:

• Making Back to the Future day truly historic through social buzz & new content
• Reaching a new generation of fans where they live – online on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr & others
• Providing new value to fans that already owned VHS or DVD editions of the franchise films
• Partnering with major brands such as Pepsi, Toyota, Lego, USA Today, AA, and Calvin Klein to amplify and expand reach

Strategy and Execution

• Cut through the clutter with new content
  • Focusing the conversation with high-quality never-before-seen content (important because everybody has seen everything from BTTF)
  • 3 key pieces of content with viral potential: including C. Lloyd reprising his role and a spoof trailer for Jaws 19
• Strategic scheduling and targeting on social platforms
  • Sustained 43-week campaign cross-promoting partner content, releasing memes, promoting #BTTF2015
  • Original video content released in a 10-week window, right before October 21st
• Boosted with paid media dollars. This allows us to:
  • Reach an even wider audience than the 4.2MM fans( friends of friends, family of friends, people engaging in BTTF conversation)
  • Tout the 30^th anniversary blu-ray edition with direct calls to action
• Influencers on Vine, Instagram, Facebook and blogs created custom content and incorporated our sales messaging
• A "chat" with Doc Brown – a FB messenger bot that interacted with fans

Results

Facebook

Massive Awareness on 10/21/15
• 27M people on Facebook made 45M posts, comments and likes
• Back to the Future was the #1 trending topic on Facebook

10/21/15 "Welcome Message" on Facebook
• 7.5M fans of both Back to the Future pages were prompted to post about "Back to the Future Day"

Event Icons on Facebook
• Fans watching the trilogy or Back to the Future Part II saw a custom Hoverboard icon in their status update
• Fans watching Back to the Future Part I or III saw a custom DeLorean icon appear with their status update

Watch Party Short on Facebook Stories
• Facebook published a 2 minute film about a real-life Back to the Future watching party organized on Facebook
• www.facebook.com/FacebookStories
• www.FacebookStories.com
• www.events.fb.com

Twitter

• #BTTF2015
• 3.1 Million Unique Posts – Hashtag Hits & Back to the Future Conversation
• #1 Trending Topic on 10/21/15

The Digital Marketing campaign created a massive amount of buzz with correspondingly impressive revenue. Namely:

Original content created: 376M impressions during 43-week campaign
182M imp. in critical 10-week window
+12% sales performance over expectations for the Blu-Ray/DVD Collection
#1 Facebook Trending topic for the day
#1 in Domestic Box Office for Oct 21, 2015

Media