Verizon has America’s largest 4G LTE network, but didn’t have a hero app to attract people to their mobile devices. To change this perception, they bought exclusive rights to a new app called Color—the first app that lets you broadcast live video to Facebook. So instead of posting pictures and videos, your friends can see what you see, live.

To promote this capability, we turned to America’s most famous live show—Saturday Night Live. And, we did it in on the biggest night of the year, the season finale. For the first time in the 37-year history of SNL, fans got to see what was happening backstage, live, on their mobile device. Leading up to the finale, the app was used to broadcast live clips of the rehearsals. And, throughout the show, fans got exclusive live content from SNL cast members. To generate buzz, we launched a vigorous PR effort highlighted by featured articles in

Rolling Stone, Mashable and PC Magazine.

In a single week, app downloads increased 500%, audience reach topped

9 million on Facebook and the content received over 20,000 ‘likes’. The launch created buzz unlike anything Verizon had ever seen. Without a single dollar of paid media, Verizon generated more than 28 million earned media impressions. Mashable called it, “The most significant product placement since the first iPad arrived on Modern Family.” As a testament to the campaign’s success, Color became a pre-loaded app on every Verizon device.

We put even more LIVE into SATURDAY NIGHT.

On Facebook, Verizon marketing and Color push notifications reached 6,152 fans of Saturday Night Live. Engagement resulted in their friends building an audience of more than 9 million people. Over a period of 3 days and 7 live broadcasts, an astonishing percentage (21.28%) of SNL fans on Facebook responded to the Color notifications to watch the live event. And this was all backed by a vigorous public relations effort highlighted by featured articles Rolling Stone and in tech blogs and e-zines, including Mashable, PC Magazine, and C/NET. The campaign ran according to plan, and was hailed “The most significant product placement since the first iPad arrived on Modern Family.”

The launch created buzz unlike anything Verizon had ever seen. In a single week, app downloads increased 500%, audience reach topped 9 million on Facebook and the live content received over 20,000 ‘likes’. Without a single dollar of paid media, Verizon generated more than 28 million earned media impressions. The story was featured in Rolling Stone, PC Magazine and Mashable called it, “The most significant product placement since the first iPad arrived on Modern Family.” More importantly, as a testament to the campaign’s success, Color became a pre-loaded app on every Verizon device.