Project Details
- Campaign : Shameless: Gallagher Group Chat
- Network : SHOWTIME®
- Awards : Shorty Awards - Audience Honor
- Press : Ad Week, The Hollywood Reporter, Marketing Dive
SHAMELESS: Gallagher Group Chat
OVERVIEW
The outrageous and beloved Gallagher family at the center of all the mayhem has been a constant for our fans through the years. Viewers felt connected to this group of lovable misfits. And if there’s one thing every group of lovable misfits has, it’s an entirely dysfunctional group chat. If they were real people, The Gallaghers would be no different, right?
To celebrate the final season of hit series SHAMELESS, and bring fans into the show like never before, we partnered with messaging platform, Community, to launch the first ever, fictional in-world experience and allow fans to “officially” become part of the Gallagher clan by joining their extended family group chat.
STRATEGY & EXECUTION
Our campaign launched on Valentine’s Day prompting fans to text a phone number designed on a candy heart graphic. When fans texted the South Side Chicago phone number (a nod to where the show is set), they were met with a first of its kind fictional text chain among the family comprised of text messages, photos and even audio messages. This fan was on THE INSIDE. And beyond Valentine’s Day, the Gallagher Fam popped off at any & all moments the family cared about. They messed with one another on holidays, asked for favors in a very family way & put things in the group chat that were, erm, meant to be one on one exchanges. Fans continually flooded our inbox to check in on their favorite characters, replied to our hilarious in-world content and shared their thoughts after a crazy episode each week. Some even received personalized birthday greetings from fan favorite, Mickey.
RESULTS
This first to market execution helped achieve our goals of engaging, rewarding & celebrating one of our most popular shows in an innovative new way.
We received over 100K text messages from a community excited to engage with this fictional family. Our stop rate was less than <1% indicating we retained those who opted in. Consumer buzz extended to social with participants screenshotting their exchanges to platforms like Instagram & Twitter to share with their followers. Press outlets AdWeek and The Hollywood Reporter covered the launch of the Gallagher Group Chat. And we all poured one out for The Gallaghers.
