Give Narcos followers an exclusive pre-screening of Episode 1, Season 2 on Facebook Live. But it couldn’t be that simple. In the shady world of Narcos, such a gesture is too kind. Instead, we tricked our fans into thinking it was a full episode but after 11 minutes Pablo Escobar abruptly interrupts the show, comes into frame and scolds the viewers for trying to steal from him.

This was a one-time execution using Facebook Live like never before. By teasing existing Narcos fans and leaving them hanging, we would get them, their friends, and the media, talking about that time Pablo Escobar threatened them for stealing from him.

The reactions were immediate. Fans where blown away by the clever trick, with a total of 727K viewers, and over 3 million organic million impressions from their sharing. Rolling Stone, Creativity, and Fast Company were gushing over the leak and Pablo's cameo, all agreeing on one thing: Nobody steals from Pablo Escobar.

Netflix is web-based. It’s streaming. And fans of streaming shows are more likely to have their social media open and active.The Narcos social platforms have over 3.5 million followers who already love the show. That's a lot of free advocacy if we give them something to talk about. The Episode Leak idea leveraged the excitement among hardcore fans for the show to return, and gave them an exclusive interaction with Pablo Escobar himself in all his crude, rude glory. The viewers and media went nuts, sharing the news of the stunt and, by design, the upcoming launch of Season 2.

Followers were recently told the launch date but were eager and impatiently waiting for the date to come. They were phening for more Narcos and they wanted it now. The Narcos Facebook page has over 3.5 million followers, so it was the perfect place to create a stunt and get them talking about the launch.

Our objective was to amplify the buzz and anticipation around Narcos Season 2 to reach beyond dedicated fans of Narcos, and stir the curiosity of casual fans and non-viewers of the show.

Context:

1. Netflix is web-based. It’s streaming. And fans of streaming shows are more likely to have their social media open and active.

2. Narcos’ storyline is rich with surprises and unexpected plot twists, and they love to discuss it on social

3. Consumers and media tend to jump on the latest cool thing to “break the internet”, which takes a potentially viral piece of content and amplifies it even further through mass media.

Knowing all of this, our goal was to create innovative social content that would propel the existing fans to share their Narcos obsession and attract new Narcos fans worldwide - without paid media.