The Being Mary Jane Edible Billboard

Disrupting Out of Home with engagement

BET

Challenge: Develop a newsworthy IRL activation to engage audiences in a novel way that drives buzz and excitement for the series finale of Being Mary Jane on BET.

Solution: We disrupted Out of Home Advertising with a new model of engagement and digital reach.

Our creative strategy was to celebrate Mary Jane finally having it all, and announce her upcoming nuptials in a very public way. So we created an actual edible billboard, with an image of Mary Jane and her wedding cake. The twist was the 4 tiered wedding cake was made up of a mosaic of cake boxes, and fans were invited to get a slice of cake to be a part of her big day. For this special cake, we partnered with celebrity chef and TV personality Ayesha Curry who created a twist on the classic white wedding cake, using real vanilla bean, orange zest and honey. We then sent instagrammable mini versions of this cake to a curated list of influencers and press who posted all over social media about the upcoming finale and the billboard drop.

When we finally erected the billboard in Brooklyn, it was further eventized with wedding inspired outfits for Brand Ambassadors and wedding flower garlands surrounding the billboard. It performed like traditional Out of Home, gaining impressions from the constant car and foot traffic, but we extended beyond passive reach into physical and digital engagement, by offering a social currency exchange – if passerby’s posted a picture of the billboard they could grab a box of cake. Fans literally ate it up as they were surprised and delighted to discover the billboard doubled as a wedding cake. We were able to give fans an interactive experience to celebrate Mary Jane and take a “piece” of their favorite show with them. With a line for hours, and thousands of pieces of cake taken, the billboard lit up across all social platforms. On premiere night #beingmaryjane became the #1 trending topic in the U.S. resulting in record ratings of over 2.1 Million viewers.

Results: 45K+ Billboard reach impressions, 15MM+ Social reach impressions, 123MM+ Earned media impressions, 2MM+ Viewers (Record finale ratings)