Holiday fatigue is real. Every channel is flooded with ads, usually transactional and easy to ignore. So during the most competitive retail moment of the year, how do you make a brand feel cool instead of commercial?
The answer: don't advertise. Entertain.
Instead of making a batch of social assets, we made a mockumentary comedy series with lovable, relatable characters each on their own holiday shopping mission.
To integrate the brand, instead of campaign tags or messages, we set our show inside a Target and wove products naturally throughout.
Jules, played by TikTok comedy sensation, Manon Matthews, is on a mission to get the perfect gift for her boyfriend's parents, until she starts to spiral.
Paisley is the hostess with the most-ess, and sometimes that's too much. Her holiday party theme is pure chaos, until Target's Aisle 12 sets her straight.
Our social show employed TV development tactics, building a Series Bible with character muses, working like a writers room to beat episodes, and doing table reads with our clients as we developed episodes.
But in one key area we didn't follow the TV model: Instead of traditional actors, we cast some of our favorite comedy creators on social media.
Dan is the Sanctuary Shopper. He's not at Target because he needs something. He's there because way too chaotic, at least way more than the home decor section. Starring The Bachelorette's Greg Grippo.
Gary doesn't really shop at Target. He attempts to complete the list that someone else gave him with unfortunate results. Luckily, a magical Yeti is there to help.
The result?
Six hero episodes, 18 pieces of creator content, more than 210 million series views, 1.1M reach across all creator-owned content, and more “This is better than a Hallmark movie” comments than we could count.