TNT asked us for an activation that not only celebrated the third season of its TV show Dallas, but also brought it back into the pop culture conversation.

To achieve this, we blurred the lines between fact and fiction.

For a one day promotion on the day of the premiere, TV’s most famous family—The Ewings—would “undercut the competition” with affordable gas prices ($1.98 a gallon) at an entirely branded Ewing Energies gas station in NYC.

The experience was preceded by a phased PR approach that included an exclusive Fast Company feature announcement, a succession of pulsed teases across the media landscape, and then an official location reveal with an array of print and broadcast outlets onsite for the launch.

These efforts were complemented by a fully fleshed-out social media campaign that included Facebook posts, web video messages by John Ross Ewing (actor Josh Henderson) promoting a sweepstakes for fans and teasing the real-life gas price. The team also tapped traditional media with a full-page ad in the New York Times staged as if “from the desk of John Ross.”

We even had Josh Henderson show up in character for a ribbon cutting at the station—pumping gas and offering the perfect photo opportunity for celebrity weeklies and entertainment outlets.

Consumers clamored for the chance to experience the power of the Ewing family for themselves. We sold approximately 10,000 gallons and created traffic jams in NYC that were 8 blocks long.

Oil is the central theme of the show, creating drama and fueling feuds. It seemed only natural that the most powerful oil family on TV would flex their muscles in the real-life oil game, undercutting the competition and stealing their business with Ewing Energies. Another major strength of the show is the rabid fan affinity for its characters. By brining John Ross Jr. and Ewing Energies into the real world, we allowed fans to become a part of the Ewing world, as they witnessed them directly steal business from real gas stations. Behavior they had previously only seen on the show.

How powerful is the Ewing family really? So powerful that this fictional, pop-up business, Ewing Energies, put NYC’s traffic at a standstill with lines eight blocks long. Overall, the event garnered over 311 million media impressions, was featured in 27 local city news broadcasts across the country, and even reached international news outlets in Canada and England. The fanfare resulted in the Dallas season 3 opener being one of the all time highest rated TNT premieres.