As they age, millennial men have a hard time transitioning to adulthood. There are jobs they’d rather not go to, and chores they’d rather not do. Popular with teen boys, Slim Jim wanted to demonstrate that growing up doesn’t mean giving up everything enjoyable.

Additionally, our target is less and less engaged/entertained by traditional advertising. Time-shifting, mobile-based entertainment and other content experiences all have become a more important part of their lives – distracting them from typical targeting methods. Increasingly, this target is looking for new, engaging, and entertaining ways to become a part of the brand story.

We created a character that could help fulfill millennial men’s wishes to escape the drudgery of everyday life. Our partnership with Funny or Die ensured we’d entertain our target by surrounding him with irreverent and humorous content.

Four separate and unique long-form episodes were co-created telling the story of Greg and his desperate attempts to deliver on the wishes asked of him. Separately, we needed to guarantee our target with this content, not just hope they’d find it; so we created hilarious outtakes that were used across the brands owned and operated properties, driving to our branded hub. Additional editorial and GIF content further developed our character and provided some unusual background on his ‘family’ and how he came to be. Social support from our TJ Miller and Funny or Die, rounded out our campaign ensuring we’d deliver relevant content to our target in the most organic way.

The message resonated with our target, and our engagement has been impressive. To date, the Genie series has been viewed over 55MM times (15MM of which via Funny or Die’s owned channels) and was #2 on Visible Measure’s Vid Spotlight for September (154 thousand views for the month, eclipsed only by Apple) and drove a 25% lift in brand affinity, 5x higher than the 5% goal. The series has also been the subject of great press, receiving recognition as a revolutionary example of branded content by director.