In collaboration with Maiah Ocando, the self-proclaimed “awkward girl,” we created Dear Maiah, the first-ever scripted comedy series for Instagram. A digital spin on a traditional advice column meets sketch comedy and built exclusively for Instagram. It all started with Maiah explaining the project and asking her fans if they wanted any of her “very-own-sometimes-terribly-odd-advice-that-you-should-likely-not-actually-follow.” Fans posted their questions in the comments and texted them directly to a show phone. Each episode took the form of a 60 second or less comedic skit on Instagram - packing tons of thrills, laughs, tears, and more into a super compact episode perfect for the mobile generation. From seeing what Maiah would do if she forgot someone’s name, to how to survive a long distance relationship, Dear Maiah filled every second with some great-but-maybe-not-totally-sound advice that fans absolutely loved.

Dear Maiah started with a call-to-action on Maiah’s Instagram inviting her fans to submit their most awkward scenarios in the comments of the post, or by texting a designated AT&T number. After combing through thousands of fan submissions, we worked with Maiah to write answers in the form of comedic sketches that were filmed specifically for Instagram. Given that the majority of Maiah’s fans are bilingual, and some only speak Spanish, we created Spanish subtitles that served the dual purpose of allowing fans to track with their sound off. Once an episode was posted, Maiah continued the conversation directly with her fans in real time both through the comments and Instagram’s direct message feature.

By collaborating with Maiah to provide her fans with the content they desired, and working as an early adopter of Instagram’s 60 second video, Maiah was so was deeply invested in Dear Maiah that she went 773% over and above her contracted social deliverables. This level of partnership enabled us to far surpass our KPIs and deliver nearly 3.3MM total video views, almost 27MM impressions, and 124K engagements. The show received accolades from Tubefilter, Trending All Day, IMDb, Marketing Daily, Adota, and El Especialito featured Maiah on their cover. Meanwhile, fans begged for a second season and Maiah herself noted that this collaboration with AT&T was one of her favorite projects of all time, posting to Instagram, “Thanks to…@att for being such an intelligent brand and encouraging creators like me to raise the bar and push the envelope when making scripted and innovative content for the Internet.”