It all started with the news that LeBron James was returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers—a story that immediately caught our attention. We knew we had to act fast in order to be timely and hit at the same speed as culture.

We developed a narrative that told a story of how LeBron’s explosive, free movements lead to intense workouts which bring up memories of why he decided to go back to Cleveland. This narrative required us to get firsthand accounts of LeBron’s childhood from himself and his mother. We also interviewed his closest childhood friends. Our mission was to be as authentic as possible. We had to be in order to tell such a real and emotional story.

The content was a hit on the PR circuit with over 15 MILLION YouTube views and over a billion media impressions. The campaign was also featured on many media outlets such as Bleacher Report, ESPN, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Adweek, and Adage.

The campaign was implemented on social via paid and owned media, while :60 and :30 spots ran on ESPN and TNT. Furthermore, we aired the long form on TNT after the first quarter of LeBron James’ first home game, while TNT commentator Marv Albert helped set-up the film.

On the ground we passed out T-Shirts and posters at select locations prompting high demand and queues that were several blocks long. A huge OOH billboard at a parking lot next to the Arena received additional eyeballs and media buzz.

The long-form film garnered almost 15 million views on YouTube, while the cut-downs on Instagram received 90,000 views. Overall impressions on Facebook counted for 3.1 million, while Twitter received a staggering 65 million impressions and 13,200 retweets. 211,500 Likes were received on Instagram. The campaign boosted social engagement by 5000% and boosted sales by 133%.

64+ outlets reporting including: Huffington Post, Fox Sports, Adweek, Fast Company, Boston Globe, Pop Crush, Horizont, The Economic Times

Over 160 million media impressions.