Case Studies

Complex and Omaze Partnership

Complex and Omaze partnered to offer Sneaker Shopping fans the ultimate dream prize while supporting It’s From the Sole, a nonprofit organization focused on collecting, refurbishing and giving away shoes to the homeless in New York City and other metropolitan areas across the world.

Over a 3-month flight, fans had the opportunity to enter to win $15,000 to spend on streetwear and a pair of Off-White x Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG Chicago sneakers, selected exclusively by Joe La Puma.

To bring this campaign to life, I developed a 360 phased marketing strategy to target all of our O&O channels and develop a presence across the brand. This included working cross-functionally to secure verbal mentions in Sneaker Shopping YouTube episodes and Complex Sneakers podcast episodes, dedicated email blasts to Sole Collector and Complex audiences, organic and paid social plans (across Complex Main, Complex Sneakers and Sole Collector), editorial features on Complex.com, and in-programming YouTube bugs. I also collaborated with our external partners at Omaze and It’s from the Sole to ensure all communications were consistent and complimentary across platforms.

Over the course of 3 months this partnership raised $27,756 for It’s From the Sole.

ComplexLand 2020

During the wake of COVID, ComplexLand was created to provide our audience and fans with an alternative experience in place of our annual in-person event ComplexCon. This 5 day, 24 hour virtual event included:

• 100+ brands, artists and restaurants

• 40+ exclusive product drops

• 40+ hours of original content inclusive of live performances, panels and programming

All while highlighting and supporting charitable organizations Shoes That Fit, National Cares, and The Marshall Project. For this first of its kind event, our team developed a 4 phase GTM strategy with primary goals below:

• Phase I: Create intrigue and excitement for the promise of ComplexLand 

• Phase II: Continue to build upon the story of ComplexLand, why people should care, why it’s different and foster anticipation by bringing our audiences deeper into the process

• Phase III: Motivate our audience by ramping up organic and paid marcoms across all O&O channels 

• Phase IV: Encourage intention around dedicated ComplexLand moments like drops, brands, panels and surprises to retain user engagement throughout the week

Overall ComplexLand totaled 725K sessions with 441K unique users across 174 different countries.

Complex’s Pull Up & Vote Campaign

Coming out of a turbulent 4 years, it was exceedingly important for Complex Networks to develop a 2020 election campaign. The primary goals were to educate our audience on issues most relevant in battleground states, maintain an updated timeline of election dates, encourage voter registration and deliver content in a way that resonated with our youth audience. 

To achieve our goals, we developed a 360 plan to activate across all Complex O&O channels (editorial, video, social, email, .com) to super serve our audience with organic content to ultimately push back to our election microsite on complex.com. The campaign included:

• Live virtual voting party with conversations on important 2020 Presidential Election topics hosted by Tamika Mallory. The 90 minute event featured celebrity guests Barack Obama, SZA, Chloe x Halle, Usher, DJ Questlove, Jack Harlow, Saint Jhn, among others which garnered 1.4M+ streams in 24 hours. 

• Multiple organic social series to explore Biden and Trump’s stances on major youth related issues and engage with our non-endemic audiences (i.e: Complex Sneakers, First We Feast, Complex Style) to drive audiences back to our election microsite.

• Video content from legacy series like Complex World to break down social issues (Know Your Rights, Voting Against Environmental Racism, Immigration Reform, Black Lives Matter Movement, Student Debt and Political Misinformation). An exclusive episode of Sneaker Shopping featuring VP candidate Kamala Harris, reaching over 1.9M views. 

Complex News Presents: A New Medellin Screening

Complex launched a special documentary, A New Medellin which took an in-depth look at how a city in the mountains of Colombia redefined a music genre and brought it to the world. To amplify the launch I developed a strategy to host the first Complex News Presents advance screening. The goals for this campaign launch included:

• Drive revenue by presenting a compelling marketing pitch to internal sales team to ensure a brand sponsors the documentary

• Create a buzz within the Latino community

• Increase awareness to ensure the documentary hits target & secondary audiences

The intimate invite-only screening was hosted at the private membership club NeueHouse in New York City, sponsored by Buchanan’s Scotch Whiskey. Upon arrival guests were greeted with speciality themed cocktails and light movie snacks. The room was filled with a curated group of Complex & Latino talent, Latino press outlets, industry music executives and social media influencers. Immediately following the documentary, there was a Q&A session with the directors and popular Latino music stars DJ Pope (J. Balvin’s personal DJ) and Bull Nene. 

Between post-screening and documentary launch coverage over 46M individuals across social media were reached throughout the duration of this campaign.

Complex and Old Spice Group Therapy Campaign

The challenge was to launch a new show genre in partnership with Old Spice on Complex’s YouTube platform. Group Therapy was Complex’s first ever comedy sketch series that pulled from newsworthy topics in pop culture and social media. The series pushed a new generation of diverse social media comedians and writers such as Nileseyy Niles, Matt Richards, Nore Davis, Sasha Merci, Neko White, Kellen Schneider, Nick Ogle and Aida Osman to their funniest limits. The overall marketing goals included:

• Build awareness around Group Therapy and Complex brand

• Increase viewership & engagement across all digital and social platforms

• Add credibility and amplify messaging with support of talent

To achieve these goals and launch the series I worked cross-functionally to develop a 360 marketing plan inclusive of out of home, digital, social, paid, and email strategies. The out of home strategy specifically targeted one of the nation’s top markets, NYC. To maximize impressions and capitalize on the heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic two digital billboards were strategically in the city. The prime locations included Broadway & 54th (next door to Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show) and 42nd & Broadway in the center of Times Square.

Over the 4 week run, these digital billboards garnered over 6M impressions. To date the series has over 1.86M YouTube lifetime views (May 2020).

Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow Strategic Partnership Campaign

In celebration of NASA’s 60th Anniversary Discovery and Science Channel premiered a special simulcast event. The marketing goals for this campaign were to drive brand equity/awareness, build a frequency between Discovery and Science Channel, and promote viewership. I created a robust strategic partnership plan with the below brands to target secondary audiences:

• Girl Scouts troops across the country were invited to attend a special in-theater advance screening. Upon arrival attendees were gifted with custom Above and Beyond patches and encouraged to share their excitement on social using the hashtag #AboveandBeyondGirlScouts.

• Astronaut Foods created a branded product driving tune-in which was available for purchase in over 30 nationally accredited Science and Space Museums across the country.

• Pintrill created two custom spaces pins available for purchase in-store and online. Each pin was paired with a show card featuring tune-in information.

• Moon Cheese distributed product to attendees at select VIP and Press Above and Beyond screenings across the country.

• The Bagel Artist created a space themed bagel available for purchase in-store and online. 

The campaign reached diverse audiences ranging from elementary aged to seniors across the country, garnering more than 1.5M social media impressions reaching over 1.8M individuals.