Gillette was an old-fashioned brand stuck in traditional media. They were looking for a way to make their brand relevant and truly buzz-worthy in the digital space, but they had no budget and they wanted to utilize their existing assets.Our solution was to do something counterintuitive to P&G—post an unbranded video that would become viral, so curious consumers would give Gillette credit without Gillette asking for it. We came up with a “how did he do that” idea, which we tacked onto the end of another shoot with one of our athletes/spokespersons.We squeezed the shoot onto the end of another TV shoot during spring training, did some post production effects for free, then released the video on YouTube. It caught fire in the digital space on a worldwide scale and crossed over into traditional media, appearing all over print and TV.

The card-signing experience rewarded consumers by allowing them to interact with a massive 20-foot-tall congratulatory card inside Grand Central Station in New York City, while fans across the globe could also sign the card with a unique technology that allowed them to personally write messages to Derek on their mobile phones, tablets and computers. These online handwritten messages were printed out in real time and pasted to the physical card itself, while a sports announcer read each message live and a live stream transmitted all the action back to the consumers online. Additional footage was also taken of the entire event and an actual card presentation to Derek Jeter at Yankee Stadium, which was then posted online to reignite the personal interest of users in the event, who could see and hear their messages come to life.

The activity on Gillette’s Facebook page increased 700% and reached over 600,000 people on Twitter. There was coverage on CBS News, ABC News, SportsIllustrated.com, CNN.com, CNN Newsroom, etc. Between these outlets and streaming live coverage, Gillette was able to drive online participation with a real-world campaign, which created over 110m impressions, with 15m organic impressions.