When Oscar Mayer launched their new Butcher Thick Cut bacon, they needed to raise awareness and prove they had the best bacon on the market. Since our research showed that there are more online conversations about bacon than about Kanye West, Tom Cruise and Lady Gaga, our objective to focus the buzz around Butcher Thick Cut.

We knew people loved bacon and we knew our new bacon, packed as thick as a brick of gold, was the best. So, we set out to prove that it could take the place of currency. We sent ordinary guy Josh Sankey on the road without cash or credit cards, just a pickup truck and refrigerated trailer carrying 3,000 pounds of bacon. He had to barter his bacon for everything he needed along the way—and asked people for help through social media.

Thousands of people live-bartered with Josh for the essentials: a couch to sleep on, a home cooked meal, a tank of gas. As the journey took off, the offers became more outlandish. Josh bartered bacon for a real tattoo, fire-breathing lessons and coveted tickets to NFL Opening Day. For a handful of bricks, he even got the mayor of Cedar City, Utah to change the town’s name to Sizzle City for a day.

By the time Josh reached LA, his journey had become a cultural phenomenon. Behind massive social engagement and thousands of stories in the press, Oscar Mayer became America’s most talked about bacon brand, generating 336 million earned media impressions and more online buzz than its four biggest competitors combined.

We recreated the classic American cross-country odyssey using only our bacon and social media. We enlisted a regular guy, Josh Sankey, to serve as our unlikely hero who would field and make barters via social media along the way.

To ensure the call for barterers reached the masses, we partnered with a leading digital lifestyle publication to promote the effort and used influencer marketing to seed the story, teaming up with key online influencers in the food, travel and entertainment verticals. Most importantly, we planned for the unplanned. Our campaign would inherently be dictated by consumer participation, so we set ourselves up to be nimble in a real-time environment. This involved exploring hundreds of scenarios in advance and structuring our team accordingly so we could be ready for anything.

By the time Josh reached LA, he had physically bartered 2,168 bricks of bacon with over 1,000 bacon-lovers across 3,125 miles. The campaign garnered more than 336 million earned media impressions, with major media outlets including The New York Times, The Huffington Post, USA Today and NPR covering Josh’s journey. Conversations about Oscar Mayer doubled during the campaign and the brand saw a 41% increase in positive sentiment. Oscar Mayer became America’s most talked about bacon brand, generating more online buzz than its four biggest competitors combined.