One of advertising’s most prestigious awards recognized PMG today for its outstanding work for Beats by Dre in its Straight Outta Somewhere campaign. PMG won the ADWEEK Media Plan of the Year Award, which is among the highest honors given to media agencies globally. The campaign’s dynamic media plan won in the category of Best Use of Social.
The Straight Outta Somewhere campaign sought to promote one of 2015’s most anticipated films, Straight Outta Compton, ahead of its release, create affinity for the Beats by Dre brand through social engagement, and extend the reach of the campaign’s videos. The campaign leveraged the broad cultural momentum of the film with a simple idea: create a customizable meme that allowed people to “rep their own city.” Users would show the world where they’re from by uploading their own photo and filling in the blank after “Straight Outta ____.”
“Our goal was to turn this from a simple meme generator to a social trend the world over,” said George Popstefanov, president and founder of PMG. “We ended up with millions of memes, created by broad segments, including hip-hop and sports fans to celebrities, brands, and even the White House.” He added, “We’re proud of our role behind what was truly a culturally defining effort.”
#StraightOutta became the number one trending item simultaneously on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – the first time one brand has ever achieved that. At the campaign’s peak, there were an average of 15,000 #StraightOutta tweets and retweets per minute. #StraightOutta was also covered in major news publications and blogs as a clever marketing effort that not only pushed the Straight Outta Compton film into mainstream culture, but also “took over the Internet.” It was so successful that it led to the film being one of the top 10 searched terms in 2015.
The ADWEEK award is just the latest in an impressive run of honors for the groundbreaking campaign that includes seven Cannes Lions, top honors in the Facebook Awards, two Shorty Awards, Best in Show at the EIMA Awards, and more.
Learn more about the campaign here and see all the winners on adweek.com.
