Universal Pictures: Despicable Me

Gru and the Minions from Despicable Me come to life on Facebook.

In preparation for the July 2010 launch of the movie Despicable Me, Universal Pictures wanted to create a delightfully despicable presence on Facebook for their wicked character Gru and his army of minions. Universal and their agency Big Honcho Media asked Friend2Friend to build the fan base and create a rich and engaging experience for fans on Facebook, featuring content from the movie and leveraging the viral nature of Facebook by letting users share Despicable Me with friends.

Friend2Friend delivered with both a sweepstakes to win Minion prize packs (one for you, one for a friend) and a rich and engaging Despicable Me Facebook page tab filled with activities and movie content. Syndicated across two Facebook pages—Despicable Me and Minions—these apps brought in fans to enter the sweepstakes contest, then kept them participating and inviting friends through the interactive content tab. On the tab, Friend2Friend built three mini-apps—Despicable Me gifts, a photo gallery, and a poll—as well as a YouTube video player and a variety of promos and links. The multi-featured tab allowed Universal and Big Honcho to feature fan offerings like an iPhone app, the movie soundtrack, and games hosted on their website. Sharing functionality was integrated throughout the tab so that users could easily post content to their wall or send invitations to friends, spreading Despicable Me virally across Facebook.

In the six weeks leading up to the movie release, the fan base for Despicable Me and Minions quadrupled to over 400,000 fans at movie launch, helping fuel a hugely successful opening weekend. During that time tens of thousands of participants entered the sweepstakes, generating millions of social impressions to their friends through the news feeds, invites and sharing of content.

The content tab has generated over 100,000 actions in the past few weeks, whether it’s answering a poll question, sending a gift (the Fluffy Unicorn is the most popular), viewing a photo or video, or clicking a link. This opportunity for fans to participate with the brand and share it with friends continues to fuel enthusiasm for the movie and drive Facebook users to the theater.

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