Pretty Little Liars —

How to Launch a Hit Series Beyond it's Core

When ABC Family and Wieden + Kennedy were looking to launch the premiere of Pretty Little Liars, the series based on the New York Times best-selling novel series, we joined forces to bring the narrative to life. While fans of the novels were sure to tune-in, the upcoming show needed to make a splash. That meant reaching out beyond fans to educate new audiences with a focus on teen girls

Client

ABC

Project

Pretty Little Liars Alternate Reality Experience

Deliverables

Strategy, Media, Web Design/Development, Video Content, Social Content, Digital, OOH, Game UI, UX

THE
APPR
OACH

A Mix of Sharable Content, and Unique Sharable Experiences
The campaign engaged fans of Pretty Little Liars books with sharable content across social, mobile, and through a unique experience that turned some lucky PLL fans into the characters themselves. They were encouraged to spread the word to friends less familiar with the property by engaging with their friends through social experiences and invited to live like the characters in the show; trading secrets, protecting the truth – and, of course… lying.

ALTER
NATE
REAL
ITY

Pretty Little Influencers
The lives of 40 entertainment bloggers and reporters were thrown into the world of Pretty Little Liars with our own custom alternate reality game that had them playing the roles of PLL characters in teams of four. Each one received a mysterious package by courier that included their own pre-activated phone, pre-populated with the content and contacts belonging to their character. The show’s villain, known only as “A,” messaged with them in real-time, drawing them to destinations across the Internet to complete missions – and tell lies – with the help of their audiences.

MO
BILE

Bump & Tell
What’s your biggest secret? On mobile, fans were given the opportunity to trade secrets with friends and other fans. One for one. When two phones with the app were bumped against one another, they would trade secrets from the library of hush-hush tales the user had added to the app. After all, no one’s going to share your secret when you have one of theirs.

BUMP PHONES TO SHARE
YOUR SECRET!

Lying Liars, and the Friends who Call Them Out
On Facebook, we moved from secrets to lies. Fans were invited to play the popular game Two Truths and a Lie through a Facebook App that invited them to engage with friends by adding a series of truths and lies about themselves. Friends were invited to guess which was which for points to see who knew them best.

SOC
IAL

THE RESULTS

A Pretty Big Hit with Teen Girls
With the launch of the campaign, Pretty Little Liars became one of ABC Family’s biggest premieres of all time, over 10% of US females 13-18 tuned-in to watch the first episode and generated more than 130 organic posts, becoming third on Twitter’s list of trending topics.