From the mind of Ben Stiller, Severance is a dystopian thriller that, in all of its oddness, somehow mirrors our collective feelings on work-life balance.

The brief was to ensure this demented new series reached and resonated with anyone who fit the psychographic profile of being "desperate to escape work."

Our objectives were to:

Build intrigue for this new type of workplace thriller (KPIs: conversation, engagements, Press Hits)

Build a community of engaged Severance fans (KPI's: social engagement)

Invite the internet to work at Lumon.

Our big idea was “Welcome to Lumon”. Sure, we could simply tell people about a new Apple TV+ show with a mysterious workplace where a controversial procedure splits your memories so no one knows what happens in the building. Or, we could invite people to join that workplace and find out for themselves.

Our strategy was to exploit the cultural wildfire premise we had on our hands. We knew we were living at a time when the idea of getting 'severed' might even appeal to some workers, as the cultural phenomenon known as the Great Resignation saw ~1/3 of workers rethinking their current jobs, and reporting extreme burn out.

We set out to get burnt-out workers who desperately wanted an escape from the grind to try Severance by bringing them into the world of Lumon- and allowing them to make their own parallels to their oppressive work lives.

1. It started with Infinite Hallway, a 6m33s video of a camera endlessly roaming the halls of Lumon. This cryptic tour was shared by Ben Stiller on Twitter and dropped the day before the official teaser, on December 15th.

2. We launched Welcome to Lumon, a digital 'zine on Instagram that served as an orientation to all new Lumon employees.

3. In season, we launched LinkedIn's first-ever fake company page, where we shared company materials like our core values, employee badges and other onboarding materials.

4. We shot bespoke office tours on set with star talent to acclimate new hires, and promoted these videos from our new LinkedIn presence to reach our target.

5. In the lead up to finale, we hosted a Twitter AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Ben Stiller and 8 cast members, where nearly 1,000 questions were asked, many were answered, all answers were hilarious or insightful.

Our Twitter AMA assembled the largest-ever collection of A-list talent, driving #Severance to the #1 organic trending Twitter topic on the day of its finale:

-Generated 1.2M impressions organically, 22x higher than average ATV+ Tweet.

-Most commented post (727 comments) for Apple TV+'s handle since launch.

Our ongoing social content smashed benchmarks for engagements and reach:

-Instagram content beat benchmarks by 9x average reach and 2.8x average engagements

-Twitter delivered 9x average impressions and 6.5x average engagement rate.

LinkedIn Reached the Right Audience:

-Paid support drove half a million video views, 1.3M impressions, and a 30%+ VCR

20%+ peak engagement rate

-Vanity Fair and Mashable highlighted our LinkedIn.

We kept the show consistently in the zeitgeist, combatting a "mid-season conversation lull":

-88K Twitter mentions throughout the season; 4x the conversation of its nearest genre competitor

-Conversation remained high throughout season, peaking to trend #1 at finale.