Netflix’s 3 Body Problem needed to develop a broader audience to remain an economically viable production for the streaming giant.

We could bank on the show being a hit with sci-fi superfans, but needed to tease out characters, themes, and plotting that could motivate more universal interest.

Complicating matters was 3 Body Problem’s source material, which spans generations and even dimensions. The hypothetical science was intriguing but proved too weighty as a conversation starter for marketing purposes.

To prove effectiveness, we would measure our media campaign in a post-launch timeline, seeing if we could reinvigorate intrigue in the show across a broader audience by non-traditional means. In particular, we would pay attention to mass impressions and resulting search traffic, comparing it to launch day.

Watching the series, a key moment of universal intrigue emerged in episode 5 when an invading alien species makes contact with the global population.

When San-Ti, the fictional alien race in 3 Body Problem, realize that humans are a dishonest species, their interest turns to hostility and although their arrival time is only expected in 400 years, an ominous warning is sent to humanity: You Are Bugs.

We took this specific moment in the plot and re-enacted it in real life, using disruptive media placements across key global markets.

Even if casual fans would need time to warm up to the show’s complexity, any potential fan could respond to the immediacy of an external alien threat.

We would use the same threatening message from the San-Ti to pique broad interest in the 3 Body Problem, triggering search traffic via the sudden spike in impressions.

To look as realistic as possible, many of our media placements lacked branding in order to truly feel like an infiltration of Earth’s mixed media.

We sought to expand the appeal of 3 Body Problem beyond fans of the source material. For our larger scale media campaign,Sci-fi fans were a natural next target, especially those who prefer watching to reading.

However, given the show’s first season does not reveal face-to-face interactions with aliens, we needed to lean into its other tonal elements. Our last audience segment was Mystery/Thriller Fans, who would respond positively to our cryptic alien threat.

Next, we identified key markets around the world with dense populations of our intended audiences. Within those markets, we targeted areas with heavy foot-traffic, not only relying on digital but also static and large-scale media.

Most crucially, we orchestrated our activation to occur on a singular day, playing into a shared sense of global urgency. In the meantime, we seeded the phrase with search, and prepped press media to ensure search traffic would connect to the show.

Our global takeover took place on March 25th, using massive digital screens and static billboards simultaneously, in heavily trafficked locations in 275 cities in 30 countries around the world, including Sunset Boulevard in LA, Times Square in NYC, Zona T in Bogota, Plaza de Callao in Madrid, the Sphere in Las Vegas, a holographic display in Seoul, CF TEC Tower in Toronto, and train stations in Rome and Milan.

Our message glitched out standard marketing fare, repeating lines of the singular, foreboding warning: You Are Bugs.

At the same time, to fully deliver on the feeling of mixed media infiltration, we activated in individualized digital environments, glitching out full-page web displays, audiences social feeds, blasting out the message from Netflix owned accounts around the world, and tapping a list of top influencers to develop their own version of the alien warning worldwide.

The day of our invasion, search traffic for 3 Body Problem exploded, spiking on the day of the campaign.

That intrigue brought in our desired broader audience, as 3 Body Problem became Netflix’s most-watched title for 3 weeks following the campaign, racking up 15.6M views in the first week of activation.

Our media stunt received considerable organic and earned pick up. Our invasion tallied 434M social impressions, up 163% from pre-campaign, and 22M engagements, a 396% spike.

In addition to expanding 3 Body Problem’s audience, we also proved the relevancy of our target audience, boosting the show’s social engagement rate to 4.98%, an 89% spike from pre-campaign.

The renewed interest in the title also drove the original book to #1 on the Amazon Bestseller list.