WWE SMASH-UPS

World Wrestling Entertainment asked Brothers by Choice to create an experiential, viral campaign to promote Wrestlemania 25, the 25th anniversary of the event. While doing research for the initial concept, we discovered that a large number of fans were creating highlight reels on YouTube with footage they taped from television. This insight fueled the idea that an online video-editing tool would resonate with fans, especially if it was easy to use and had a competitive angle to it. We called the idea “Smash-Ups” and created a meta-based video editor that allowed fans to access a vast library of twenty five years of WWE footage, and splice it together using title cards, music and animations.

To foster competition we created a sweepstakes where the WWE community would vote on the most creative, impactful videos to declare a winner. The video artifacts could be shared on social media and each week the video library was populated with weekly clips from Smackdown, Raw and ECW shows. As creative director, I was responsible for coming up with the idea, guiding the design direction and managing all stakeholders to ensure the idea came to fruition.

The campaign was supported by TV promos, social media that included WWE celebrities creating their own videos on YouTube, print ads, online banners and e-mail marketing. It got massive results:

• 1 million+ video streams

• 500K+ site visits

• Average 6 minute session per user

• 75K videos produced 

• The platform continued post-campaign providing ad revenue

INTERSTITIALS

Working with the organization's production staff, weekly videos were shot with WWE talent to promote the program on television and social media. An example is this comedic interstitial with wrestlers Miz and Morrison encouraging basement nerds to stop playing WoW and do more smashing.

AGENCY

Brothers By Choice
2009


ROLE

Creative Director