Cruel Summer

Social Campaign

Our agency partnered with the good folks at Freeform to weave together one of the low-key coolest social campaigns of summer 2023 for the second season of their hit show, Cruel Summer. Being an anthology, our team had a whole new cast of characters, a whole new 90’s time period, and a new Pacific Northwest location with which to play.

Our goal for this ten episode who-done-it was to highlight and question the motivations of each of the main suspects, as well as the circumstances around the season’s central murder. There had to be a balance between showing too much and muddying the waters too thoroughly.

Once the campaign began to roll out leading up to premiere, fans started to eat up every single pixel and every single word we posted. Theories and conspiracies began to grow organically in the community, making our job that much more fruitful. There’s nothing like a ravenous fanbase that loves what they’re experiencing.

The campaign built up to a key event: a day-long Instagram takeover in the form of a Y2k-esque ‘hack.’ We “deleted” every post (archived them) and started posted things that a normal account would NEVER allow. Fans were tossing around conspiracy theories before this, but when we began answering their questions directly, they lost their minds.

After hours of struggling to regain control of their Instagram account, Freeform issued an apology to their fans for the disruption in content.

In the end, the Cruel Summer Season 2 premiere became Freeform’s top telecast in two years.

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