Growing up as a teen boy is truly one of the hardest things in the world, and because we at Old Spice understand this pain, we came up with the perfect training device where users could control a sea beast with seven other strangers. We called it S.Q.U.I.D., for Shared Quests Uniting Individual Dudes. Young dudes from all over the globe could log in on their phones and laptops to control one of the eight real robotic tentacles to complete the average day-to-day tasks of a teen guy, like forming a garage band or asking out a crush. Just like nature intended.

Twitch was the perfect partner match (#1 live-streaming site in the world) to engage teen boys on their own terms, given their strong audience of young males (80%) who are incredibly engaged (20+ hours a week on average).

Conceptually, we soon landed on a silly yet ambitious idea: to build the first-ever giant robotic Kraken to be controlled completely by the internet. We spent six months in Brazil building the robotic Kraken, which had eight tentacles, each controlled by Twitch users online via their devices.

Our comms strategy had three components. Prior to the event, we generated excitement within the Twitch community by seeding S.Q.U.I.D. on the platform. Once the live event started, we unleashed a sea of gaming influencers to play and share the game. Finally, to drive additional traffic from the gaming world and beyond, we distributed pre-roll across youth-centric sites.

Our core objective was engagement, and by these standards, S.Q.U.I.D. was a resounding success. The live stream racked up 2.5 million views in three days, with more than 1.6 million unique viewers (besting our goal of 1 million). S.Q.U.I.D. also racked up more than 170,000 hours of view time, which amounts to more than 20 total years of Old Spice entertainment.

Most importantly, our effort drove trial of Old Spice’s new scent. In the month following S.Q.U.I.D., sales of Krakengärd deodorant rose 38% while sales of Krakengärd body wash increased 30%, topping our goal of 20%.

By beating expectations, we secured a custom permanent emote on Twitch and Krakengärd’s position on store shelves to ensure that it would continue to succeed for years to come.