Families and Kids did not have the kind of relationship with the Minions from Despicable Me that they had with Woody, Buzz & Shrek so we decided to invade popular culture, unleashing 40 different executions across 5 different screens over a 4 month period with up-weights for key family moments. We hi-jacked searches for Toy Story and Shrek in YouTube, eventually dismantling the YouTube homepage itself and having the Minions rebuild it. We created logo morphed i-dents for sponsorships on kids TV networks. We ran family fun day screenings and used the content from the events as spots across Nickelodeon. Bespoke talent spots ran in iCarly featuring Miranda Cosgrove (star of iCarly and Despicable Me); Digital outdoor and ambient TV screens in family restaurants; We developed mobile games and assets – including a hugely popular iPhone app & Minion Avatar maker; and of course trailers and exhibitor partnership promotions in cinemas.

The campaign achieved mass consumer engagement delivering over 2 million YouTube trailer views, 2 million plays of the Minion Impossible game, 3 million visits to the Minion Maker avatar creator and 320k mobile game downloads.The movie was a massive success busting box office targets in numerous territories and resulting in a phenomenal $293m International Box Office significantly up on original expectation and grossed more than Dreamworks huge family hit “How to Train a Dragon”. Despicable Me finished the year as the 8th highest worldwide grossing film in cinemas in 2010 and the highest grossing non-franchise CGI movie of 2010.