Company: Night Vision Entertainment, Los Angeles, CA
Company Description: Night Vision Entertainment is an event marketing agency that designs and produces special events and brand experiences for some of the world’s most iconic brands. Our mission is to produce creative, innovative, and groundbreaking experiential platforms that challenge the norm and result in unprecedented marketing value.
Nomination Category: Live Event Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Public Relations Event

Nomination Title: The Simpsons Ultimate Fan Marathon Challenge

The date on which this nominated production was first presented: The production was first presented on February 8-12, 2012.

Briefly describe the nominated event's objectives and how it met those objectives (up to 525 words):

The Simpsons Ultimate Fan Marathon Challenge had the primary objective of gaining worldwide publicity for both the 500th episode of The Simpsons as well as the release of seasons 1-14 on Blu-Ray and DVD. Night Vision Entertainment fulfilled this multi-departmental (Fox Home Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company, Consumer Products, Syndication, Konami Games, TCFTV/Gracie Films) goal by creating an extraordinary brand activation and special event that resulted in breaking a world record for marathon television viewing, and ultimately generated millions of consumer impressions around the world.

Night Vision Entertainment’s solution to Fox's marketing objectives was to create an event based around a highly branded physical experience at a high-traffic area (Hollywood and Highland), while also executing a PR stunt that would be sure to generate millions of impressions on a global scale. The target audience was the worldwide fan base of The Simpsons, some of whom entered as contestants, and others who engaged on social media or read the post-event media coverage and were inspired to purchase the DVD.

The challenge went through 5 major phases:

1) A pre-event social media engagement contest utilizing a custom microsite hosted on thesimpsons.com and The Simpsons’ 60+ million Facebook fans to pick the 100 marathon contest winners

2) A marathon kick-off event with Fox executives, Simpsons voice actors, Simpsons costumed characters, Simpsons producers, and Simpsons fans at Hollywood and Highland

3) The marathon challenge contest which engaged the 100 most die hard Simpsons fans

4) The fanfare surrounding the challenge, which engaged over 25,000 guests per day, over 4 days, who walked through the event site and could purchase DVDs and other memorabilia from the Simpsons pop-up shop and could sit on couches in a clear tent to watch the show on a giant video wall.  Total fan interactions: 100,000+

4) The event wrap party that included the awarding of $10,500 and the Guinness world record for longest TV viewing marathon

5) Post-event global media coverage in areas of: print, online, radio, and broadcast

This innovative event was unlike anything The Simpsons had ever done before. Along with generating a monumental amount of press, the event also celebrated The Simpsons’ 500th episode and the fans who truly love the show. Night Vision Entertainment fulfilled 20th Century Fox's objective of gaining publicity for the Simpsons' 500th episode and seasons 1-14 on DVD. The kick-off and marathon event was covered various media outlets including: Fox 11 News, Reelz Channel, Reuters, Crave Online, M & C, Home Media Magazine, KTLA 5/The CW, KROQ, NBC Los Angeles, and The Los Angeles Times. 20th Century Fox estimates the media value was $12.7 million and that there were 87.5 million consumer impressions.
Furthermore, on February 12, 2012, Fox and The Simpsons set a new Guinness World Record of consecutive TV viewing, officially 86 hours and 37 minutes.

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Special thanks to Simpsons’ talent Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, and Al Jean for their participation.

Client: 20th Century Fox
Production Company: Night Vision Entertainment, Los Angeles
Event Producer: Liam Smith