Wild success
The new “R”Us brand identity (previous story) inspired fresh ideas for Babies“R”Us-Toys“R”Us cobranded activations. One wildly successful idea was the launch of a social editorial team for both brands and an inhouse content studio to accelerate creative development. When New York’s Animal Adventure Park announced that April the Giraffe was expecting a baby, we delivered one of YouTube’s top 5 most-watched live moments with 1.2M views, and 7.6B minutes of accumulated live watch time worldwide. Time and Fortune tweeted, “April the Giraffe is helping Toys“R”Us break the internet.”
Babies“R”Us started the conversation by commenting on a Today Show post with a tip: “Hi, April! May we suggest adding the Chicco Urban Stroller to your baby registry? Two words. Telescoping handles."
That quickly developed into sponsorship of the park’s live cam and months of posting to entertain a growing global audience. Fans went wild when we joined April’s checkup with veterinarian Dr. Tim, captured at the park in this explicit 2:20 video.
In a pretty savvy move, the sponsorship logo switched from Babies“R”Us to Toys“R”Us the day the baby giraffe was born.
