Sonic the hedgehog

Role: Creative Director, Creative Strategist
Client: SEGA

a major overhaul

It was 2015. Things were not looking good for the world's fastest hedgehog. He had recently come out with two games that met with poor reception. His Twitter following growth had slowed to a near halt. Something new needed to be done. Something different. Something extraordinary.

It began with a big shift in tone by posting a meme with Ice Cube and Guy Fieri, parodying the Sonic game 'Fire and Ice.' Priceless. From there we began tweeting self-aware tweets and snarky comments to fans. People started to take notice. The social following began to grow. It was as if the account had gone rouge (it did; we stopped sending content to higher-ups for approval). It was a hilarious, self-aware, and loved by fans.

After we released an absolutely insane video featuring Shia LaBeouf (below) that trended on Facebook, this new content strategy and tone was solidified.

(^SEGA, 2015: “Can you do something with the Shia Labeouf meme?” Me: [Makes the video above]) I was so scared when I sent this video over, I thought I was going to get fired. To post something like this on an official brand account of a video game icon was terrfying. My fears ended up not coming to fruition and the video ended up winning a CLIO.

We started getting praise from the likes of BuzzFeed, VICE, Polygon and more on our new approach. Our following begain to surge and intrerest in Sonic the Hedgehog was higher than ever. We had turned his greatest weaknesses into his greatest strengths.

Enter 2016. Our task was to go FULL FORCE with the approach we set up at the end of 2015. With a new and improved Twitter account and Sonic's 25th anniversary on the horizon, all eyes were on the world's most famous hedgehog. We continued on improving and posting our own original content and memes, referencing inside Sonic jokes that previously would have never been allowed on the channel, and parodying pop culture; all with that signature Sonic Twitter sass. We even released a mixtape on SoundCloud (it's lit), showcased new art, and hit cryptic teasers to the new Sonic game throughout our social media posts. It was pretty much went totally out-of-control wild.

SPICY ORIGINAL CONTENT

Here’s a look at some of the content I worked on for Sonic the Hedgehog’s social channels. From overall concept, creative direction and copy direction, this work helped grow the channels by millions of followers organically.

transcending social

Our new approach to Sonic’s social media ended up causing an unexpected bromance with the Dues Ex twitter account when we tweeted a fake, future game box art as a joke. The year happed to be the same year the game Dues Ex: Mankind Divided takes place.

After tweeting regularly with the Dues Ex account back and fourth for a year, the original post where the bromance was first started actually ended up being featured in the final version of the Dues Ex: Mankind Divided game as an easter egg, an inside joke that delighted both Sonic fans and Dues Ex fans.

project youtube

In addtional to Sonic’s social media channels, we were tasked by SEGA to overhaul Sonic’s YouTube channel with regular original content. Below is some of the work produced under my creative direction for Sonic’s 2016 YouTube refresh. This original content doubled Sonic’s YouTube following in under a year and helped the blue blur reach a younger demographic: