Objectives

Summary: A Social-led campaign that changed four seasons of viewer habits and made time-shifters watch it live.

Impractical Jokers is truTV's most-watched and most time-shifted series (+80%). truTV's flagship was celebrating its 100^th episode with a stunt week culminating in their first-ever live "Punishment"! Entering Season 4, truTV sought both a Top-5 rating, and transformation of the stunt into larger promotional platform. However, to reach ambitious goals, truTV needed all their time-shifters to show up together and watch live. How? Engage fans, leveraging intensely social viewers.

Challenge: Change habits and achieve a huge live rating (1.0 in A18-49) with a limited budget. Our milestone had to feel like a multimillion dollar campaign without big budgets. The only alternative was to engage fans, amplify with partners, and push digital platforms to the edge of what was possible.

Idea: Get all fans talking: create two months of social engagement, amplifying with barter/partner promotions, all culminating in final paid Social blitz – to convince fans (current + lapsed viewers) they had to watch live.

Strategy and Execution

FAN-Tastic Countdown outline:

• Fans entered via co-branded pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Vine.
• Fans submitted thematic lists of their favorite top 10 moments.
• Each week, a fan + their pick was featured on-air as Inside Joker of the Week.
• Fans picks combined into a premiere episode (FAN-Tastic Countdown) two nights before the Live special.
• During FAN-Tastic, a co-branded promotion (the #GeicoSave) was revealed. Fans voted which Joker would be saved from starting the tightrope.
• A "Geico Save" microsite included a live leaderboard ranking fan votes during the final 47 hours.
• 30 videos were created to support the countdown and the @GeicoSaves final promotion.

For 9 weeks the FAN-Tastic Countdown on-air, digital, mobile and social campaign invited fans to share their favorite moments using the hashtag #JOKERS100, showcasing their picks online at www.trutv.com/jokers100 and on-air during Impractical Jokers. Fans could submit their picks as short videos, tweets, or posts, with 8 lucky fans featured On-Air in co-branded spots as the "Inside Joker" Fan of The Week. More than 30 video content pieces drove linear, digital, mobile and social engagement.

The Countdown Campaign culminated in an Impractical Jokers FAN-Tastic Countdown television special, the day before Live Punishment Special. During FAN-Tastic, GEICO gave fans the power to save one of the Jokers from having to walk the tightrope first – and giving that Joker the power to set the order of walkers on the fateful night. 24 hours before the Live Special, the GEICO Save let fans vote via their social channels. The results tallied in an online leaderboard at www.trutv.com/jokers100 and were revealed by host Howie Mandel on-air during the Live Punishment Special.

Results

Social Results:

41MM Social impressions.

+3,000 #Jokers100 fan favorite submissions.

580,000 video views on Jokers site, YouTube channel, Instagram and Apps.

46,000 new Instagram likes.

22,000 "Geico Save" votes within final 24 hours – gaining +3000% in Geico mentions.

TV Live Ratings:

3.7MM L3 viewers tuned in – truTV's highest-rated telecast in 19 months.

1,577,000 18-49 premiere + encore L3.

#4 A18-49 and Total Viewers.

#2 timeslot W18-49 and #3 M18-49.

Media