TNT asked us for an activation that not only celebrated the third season of its TV show Dallas, but also brought it back into the pop culture conversation.

To achieve this, we blurred the lines between fact and fiction.

For a one day promotion on the day of the premiere, TV’s most famous family—The Ewings—would “undercut the competition” with affordable gas prices ($1.98 a gallon) at an entirely branded Ewing Energies gas station in NYC.

The experience was preceded by a phased PR approach that included an exclusive Fast Company feature announcement, a succession of pulsed teases across the media landscape, and then an official location reveal with an array of print and broadcast outlets onsite for the launch.

These efforts were complemented by a fully fleshed-out social media campaign that included Facebook posts, web video messages by John Ross Ewing (actor Josh Henderson) promoting a sweepstakes for fans and teasing the real-life gas price. The team also tapped traditional media with a full-page ad in the New York Times staged as if “from the desk of John Ross.”

We even had Josh Henderson show up in character for a ribbon cutting at the station—pumping gas and offering the perfect photo opportunity for celebrity weeklies and entertainment outlets.

Consumers clamored for the chance to experience the power of the Ewing family for themselves. We sold approximately 10,000 gallons and created traffic jams in NYC that were 8 blocks long.

TNT’s show Dallas had lost viewers in the second season despite a very active social media fan base.

To help kick-off season 3, TNT needed an initiative that resonated with existing fans but also attracted new viewers.

We conducted target research, learning that mainly middle-class suburbanites (ages 25 to 54) were watching programming classified as “evening soaps,” a category Dallas falls into.

They’re not tech savvy, so our campaign needed to translate easily to the digital/social landscape.

Bringing TV’s most famous family into the real world promised a big enough splash to reclaim Dallas’ pop culture relevance and catalyze conversation.

The response was overwhelmingly positive.

Not only was it a hit with the public (we sold approximately 10,000 gallons of gas over a 12-hour period), the media picked up on the project immediately—circulating photos of Josh Henderson launching the station.

We received over 100 placements and 311,626,687 million media impressions in a breadth of outlets, from entertainment to automotive to business to local news.

The Huffington Post described the event as Dallas pulling off "one of the biggest stunts in TV advertising." And Advertising Age listed the station as one of the 15 “most memorable experiential moves.”

Socially, gas station specific posts on Facebook reached 11 million people and generated a total of 193k likes, 14k shares and 9k comments. Even our exclusive announcement from Fast Company was re-tweeted over 1,000 times.

The PR strategy was truncated to a period of approximately two weeks to keep momentum and surprise.

The phased “location reveal” not only served to stoke excitement, but was also a safety measure understanding the need to control traffic of real cars.

While it was imperative that we keep the media from revealing the actual location, we wanted to ensure that we had foot traffic and media for the official ribbon cutting.

We lined up WPIX, a local station, to conduct three teaser spots and worked with national press, including Access Hollywood and CBS Newspath.

We targeted key outlets and achieved ultimate visibility with over 100 media placements across pop culture, business, advertising and national/local news—including New York Times automotive and Japonik.

The team was able to achieve their campaign goals without straying far from the initial plan.

To help launch season 3, TNT realized Dallas needed an initiative that resonated with an existing fan base but also encouraged tune-in from new viewers.

Bringing TV’s most famous family into the real world promised a big enough splash to reclaim Dallas’ pop culture relevance and catalyze conversation.

The program was built around blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

PR was essential in driving awareness and season premiere viewership.

The PR team built buzz with a phased approach—kicking-off by giving Fast Company a rendering of the secret Ewing Energies Gas Station that had consumers guessing at the location.

We timed successive media outreach to mirror the social strategy—ensuring all pulsed announcements were timed to the John Ross Ewing content for maximum engagement.

As the public kept guessing as to the location and price, a steady drumbeat of news articles/segments narrowed down the location to the tri-state area and ultimately Manhattan.

A staged ribbon cutting with actor Josh Henderson the day of the reveal, and the generated coverage, also ensured foot-traffic at the station.

The social chatter that followed demonstrated that consumers excitedly latched onto the concept—bringing Dallas and the Ewing family back into the heart of pop culture.