Cannes Lions
Apple TV+, Los Angeles / APPLE TV+ / 2022
Overview
Entries
Credits
Background
The Apple TV+ show, Ted Lasso is an multi Emmy Award winning comedy about a football coach who has a very unique way of speaking and communicating. He loves to use analogies, tons of pop culture references, and can bring a smile to pretty much any situation. But he does it all with a big heart as well--sometimes being funny, and sometimes knowing exactly what to say to empathize with just about any situation.
With such a lovable character, we didn't just want to advertise the show, we wanted to find a way to extend the world of the show and bring the character to life.
Idea
Our idea was to focus on Twitter, and use the platform not to promote Ted Lasso the show, but to bring Ted Lasso the man to life as a real person that anyone could interact with.
Strategy
Because Ted Lasso essentially speaks in pop culture references, we wanted to go to the social platform where pop culture lives, shares, and most importantly, where pop culture icons can interact with their fans on a more personal level than other platforms: Twitter.
Our strategy was to never acknowledge that Ted Lasso was a show. He was a real coach, living in our real world, and spoke to fans and interacted with them as though he were.
Target: Male/Female, equal split. Age 18-54.
Every single text-based tweet and piece of original content was created along with the show writers/talent to ensure everything Ted said or responded to was true to the voice of the character.
Execution
We created an ecosystem of in-world Twitter accounts centered around Ted's handle. The handles extended scenes/storylines from the show, responded to cultural moments, and interacted with fans and celebrities. Tweets were written with show writers in real time, and because people loved pretending Ted was real, they played along, and engaged with him as if he were.
From back and forths with celebrities, a cease and desist letter from Ryan Reynolds, and even a proclamation from the actual Governor of Kansas, every single pop culture icon and celebrity that Ted ever referenced in a tweet actually wrote back, and played along as if he were a real person.
Celebrity interactions amplified Ted's words and virtually propelled him into celebrity status himself, with hundreds of accounts tagging @TedLasso to comment on their content.
Ted never promoted the show. Even after winning 7 Emmys, Ted sub-tweeted about family—and that got 155k likes.
Outcome
People loved the social media for Ted Lasso because it didn't promote Ted Lasso, it was Ted Lasso. We never paid for media, every single engagement came organically.
- Over 100 million unique engagements. Not impressions, engagements.
- Over 536.5 million followers reached.
- @TedLasso becoming the fastest growing account in TV, reaching over 715,000 followers that consisted of pop culture icons from sports to Hollywood celebs, and fans from around the world.
- Ted Lasso trended multiple times on Twitter, even in-between seasons.
- Ted Lasso became one of the most watched shows ever on Apple TV+ beating all expected numbers, and even expanded the audience demographics of the service.
- Twitter conversations between Ted and celebs were picked up by dozens of news outlets, morning shows, trade publications, and general entertainment sites.
- Nearly all of our custom content videos with the cast reached over 1 million views.
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