At the 2020 San Diego Comic-Con, which was hosted entirely virtually, Jack Box’s Funko POP! figure was one of the most anticipated collectibles to go on sale. Our objectives were to break through the messaging clutter of Comic-Con, encourage sales of the figure, and keep the conversation around it going after it was launched.

Based upon past sales and our knowledge of how much fans loved Jack in the Box, we knew this limited-edition Jack figure would sell out instantly, whether we activated a campaign around it or not. So, instead of trying to sell the figure, we created a campaign about it selling out. We tapped into the behavior of fans bartering online for sold-out collectibles (as seen on forums, eBay, and StockX). After missing his chance to buy one of his own figures, we turned Jack in the Box’s CEO into another one of these empty-handed fans, one desperate enough to trade with these pricey online resellers just to get a figure.

We created content around Funko’s own Comic-Con livestream, Funko Virtual Con, and leveraged their social media channels to make sure we were reaching both Funko and Jack in the Box fans. Only after the entire limited-edition run of figures sold out in six minutes (after crashing Funko’s webstore), we activated the bulk our social media campaign.

After the figure sold out, we aligned Jack Box with regular fans who also missed out on purchasing one. Jack kept the conversation going, appealing to those who were able to buy a figure and see if they could strike a deal. As the 2020 San Diego Comic-Con was held virtually, the entirety of our campaign was shared across our social channels. Video, static, and GIF content was always paired alongside a unique hashtag, #JackBuyback. In a few short days, Jack connected with scores of diehard Funko and Jack in the Box fans who were willing to trade their purchased figures to Jack for nothing more than some delicious food. Of course, Jack forgot he had a figure hidden away all along. But Jack was so moved by fans’ support, he auctioned the figure to benefit charity and surprised and delighted offerees with Jack Ca$h cards.

Twitter Total Comment Page Views: 123K - View Rate of 1.61% which is 44% above benchmark

Twitter Total Engagement Rate - 1.87% which is 40% above benchmark

Reddit CPM of $5.32 was 18% more efficient than industry benchmark of $6.50.

Reddit Video View Rate: 24.82%

Industry VR benchmark for videos on awareness objective is 18.61%. Campaign exceeded this benchmark by 33%