Marketing the f*@king Funniest Teddy Bear OnlineWebby Award Submission – Social Media Campaign Category

Universal Pictures & Universal Studios Home EntertainmentDigital Marketing Departments

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Here’s how our story begins…• Ted is the first movie from Family Guy creator

Seth MacFarlane. John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) is a grown man whose cherished teddy bear came to life as the result of a childhood wish…and hasn’t left his side since. Can John’s relationship with longtime girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis), move forward with his lovably profane buddy in the picture?

• Released in movie theaters on June 29th and on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download in December, the movie launched MacFarlane’s signature boundary-pushing humor onto the big screen with a unique and outrageous storyline.

• To set Ted apart in a crowded summer marketplace, Universal needed to distinctively position the Ted character as crass, outrageous, relatable and loveable; develop a loyal fan base; and convert fans into advocates to build buzz and positive word-of-mouth.

• Facebook and Twitter were the perfect platforms to achieve the above goals and help make Ted one of the most successful comedies of all-time.

• The campaign had various elements revolving around three main strategies:

1. Starting and Building the Brand via Social Media 2. Extending Ted throughout Facebook & Twitter via Partnerships3. Further Engaging Fans via Personalization & User Generated Content

Copyright © 2013 Universal Studios All rights reserved.

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Starting Ted via Social Media• Universal leveraged Seth MacFarlane (3.5M

followers), Wahlberg (930k likes), and Family Guy’s (50M likes) loyal fan bases on Facebook and Twitter to introduce the Ted character.

• Months before the movie came into theaters, www.facebook.com/tedisreal and @WhatTedSaid launched and provided continuous content into January - weeks after the movie’s home entertainment release.

• All content was in Ted’s voice, included fantastic images with captions (i.e. memes), and were timely, culturally-relevant, off-color and hilarious - in other words, the Ted brand personified.

• By January, the Facebook page tallied over 7.5 million likes, @WhatTedSaid had nearly 700k followers – more than other film’s official Twitter handle - and daily engagement, shares and reach numbers were in the millions.

• Lastly, live Q&A events held with Ted (aka the film’s writers) attracted thousands of fans and created events around key dates.

All images include hyperlinks to live Web content.

Relevant content is shareable content. Universal made memes with timely themes, such as this one for Halloween.

Copyright © 2013 Universal Studios All rights reserved.

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Starting Ted via Social Media

By January, popular posts reached 2.1 million consumers – equal to TNT’s 2012 average nightly primetime viewership and higher than popular late night cable shows The Colbert Report , The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live & Conan.(Source 1, Source 2)

Ted Memes

Copyright © 2013 Universal Studios All rights reserved.

Content on the Ted Facebook page sparked conversation by engaging with other buzzed-about topics, including the Olympics and San Diego Comic-Con.

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Extending Ted via Partnerships• Flush with the success of Ted Facebook and

Twitter pages, Universal looked to spread Ted’s influence by reaching a broad, yet highly targeted fan base.

• Partner Facebook Pages: Enter Ted memes on Family Guy page (50M likes) and other NBCUniversal and Comcast pages ranging from Scarface (7.5M likes) to House (29M likes) to The Office (10.5M likes) to Burn Notice (2.8M likes).

• To maximize reach and effect, “Sponsored Stories” ads were employed and had click rates up to 27% - several multiples higher than NBCUniversal averages.

• Playboy Partnership: Custom electronic postcards with Ted and models were created and featured at Playboy’s Facebook page (7.6M likes) near the Theatrical and Home Entertainment release dates. Although no longer live, nearly a million fans engaged with this naughty content.

• Also, @playboy (658k followers) hosted 2 Ted themed #FriskyFriday contests (in June & December) with several of their models submitting, highly sharable sexy photos with the popular teddy bear.

A #FriskyFriday post featuring a wild interaction between Ted and Playboy model, Shera Béchard.

Copyright © 2013 Universal Studios All rights reserved.

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Extending Ted via Partnerships

Twenty-two memes were released on December 11th (the Blu-ray and DVD release date) on The Family Guy and several NBCUniversal and Comcast Facebook pages, reaching over 30 million consumers.

Partner Facebook Pages

By tailoring memes to the interests of these fans, Universal was able to create an engaging, relevant campaign without the typical backlash of many promotional campaigns on Facebook today.

Copyright © 2013 Universal Studios All rights reserved.

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Engaging Fans with Personalization• While media can spark awareness and

interest, consumer recommendations and endorsements are critical to a film’s continued success and therefore result in home entertainment sales.

• In addition to the millions of likes, shares and tweets, Universal launched two wildly successful apps that amplified fan advocacy.

• Fans can photo-bomb photos with custom created images of Ted. Intuitive, custom photo editing tools let users blend Ted into photos, and share their creations on Facebook via their feed and as their cover photo.

• Also, a public gallery, voting and integrated weekly sweepstakes were added to spur activity.

• 160k+ users created images, sharing 125k+ images on Facebook. On average, fans spent 2 ½ minutes spent with the app.

“My Wild Night with Ted” FB App

Above: The interactive main menu for Facebook app, “My Wild Night with Ted”.Copyright © 2013 Universal Studios All rights reserved.

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• An iOS and Android soundboard application that has animated video along with favorite movie lines. Fans control Ted's actions and record a video of his actions to share with friends .

• Within a few days of its release, Talking Ted rose to the top charts in iTunes, sitting at #1 in the Entertainment category for a few weeks and reaching #3 overall, amongst all apps.

• The app has 10 million downloads thus far, outpaced all internal goals and is one of the top three NBCUniversal and Comcast most downloaded apps.

“Talking Ted” Mobile & Tablet App

Engaging Fans with Personalization

Copyright © 2013 Universal Studios All rights reserved.

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Final Results

• #1 Original R-rated Comedy of All-Time• $218 Million Domestic Box Office • One of the Top Grossing Movies of 2012• $508 Million Worldwide Box Office

• Wildly Outperformed All Sales Goals• One of the Best Selling Blu-ray & DVDs of the Year• One of the All-Time Best Selling Movies of All-Time

on iTunes

• GQ’s Funnyman of the Year• Host of 85th Academy Awards• Oscar Nomination for “Best Original Song” (Ted)

Theatrical

Home Entertainment

Seth MacFarlane in 2012

Copyright © 2013 Universal Studios All rights reserved.

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Thank You For Your Consideration

Doug NeilUniversal Pictures

JP RichardsUniversal Pictures

Joe EibertUniversal Studios

Home EntertainmentLeigh Godfrey

Universal Pictures

Eric BrodskyUniversal Studios

Home Entertainment

Russell ScottJetSet Studios

Patrick YoungJetSet Studios

Brian PettigrewThe Visionaire Group

Ben CohenTen 5 Studios

Audri Nakamura360i

Copyright © 2013 Universal Studios All rights reserved.