Friends trivia ad leads to 10x increase in engagement compared to benchmark
Goal
For the Friends 30th anniversary, Warner Bros. Discovery sought new and innovative ways to expand a brand’s sponsorship opportunity. After exploring options, they thought that an interactive ad experience that would allow premium brands to engage with diehard fans was the way to go. Partnering with BrightLine, they created a unique advertisement that evoked nostalgia and got fans to interact with a trivia game using their remote controls.
We helped advertisers:
Take advantage of a key television moment by capitalizing on the loyalty of the show’s large fan base.
Align their brand with content, ensuring advertisers’ messaging felt organic and contextual.
Sustain engagement of the show’s viewers as they streamed multiple episodes or returned to watch.
Strategy
BrightLine helped bring the Friends 30th anniversary to life with interactive trivia ads. Before episodes of “Friends,” viewers were prompted to answer a series of trivia questions about the show. Questions included, “What was the name of Ross’s pet monkey?” and “What did Jack Geller tell Monica he spent her wedding fund on?”
Each frame was carefully built and tested by the BrightLine team to ensure that latency and validation were captured during delivery. Working with WBD, we were able to successfully deliver the campaign across Max to millions of viewers.
Results
By turning viewers into participants, the campaign knocked engagement benchmarks out of the park and redefined streaming ad experiences. Over a quarter of a million fans engaged with the ad, with the average viewer answering at least two questions.
The engagement rate was 10x the industry benchmark, showing that fans were immersed with the experience. One of the brands who invested in this opportunity got a 20% share of voice. Additionally, our case study was picked up in Ad Age.
And our favorite result of all? Over 90% of participants guessed the name of Ross’s monkey correctly – Marcel!