MEAN GIRLS

Making Paramount+ totally fetch

Working on the Mean Girls (2024) campaign for Paramount+ was an absolute "grool" experience. Despite the movie's mixed reviews during its theatrical run, I was determined to make our campaign fetch. As a longtime Mean Girls fan (my birthday is October 3, after all), I felt I really knew these characters to their core. I wanted to create a campaign that reflected that deep connection and celebrate all versions of the film.

Our strategy was:

Did You Hear?: Raise awareness of Mean Girls streaming on Paramount+ and build linkage between the IP and the P+ brand. We made sure everyone knew that Mean Girls is so not a regular movie, it's a cool movie.

Sit With Us: Establish the P+ social accounts as the go-to destination for all things Mean Girls. Our goal was to create a virtual cafeteria where fans old and new could discuss, debate, and celebrate their favorite Mean Girls moments. We wanted everyone to feel like they were part of the Plastics' inner circle.

Junior Plastics: Act as a bridge between classic fans and those fresh to the new musical. By blending iconic lines and scenes from the original with the fresh energy of the musical, we aimed to create a campaign that was as timeless as Regina George's Burn Book.

In the end, our efforts ensured that Mean Girls on Paramount+ was a campaign that fans would never forget—because in the world of Mean Girls, "the limit does not exist" for how much we can celebrate this iconic story.

Getting into the North Shore High School mindset.

My goal with this campaign was to connect with the audience and create content that felt like it was made by one of their classmates or someone they know personally. I wanted to get into the minds of certain characters and have that reflected in the creative. Here are a few pieces I'm particularly proud of:

Character Lock Screens: I believe your lock screen says a lot about you! To introduce these new characters to an audience who might not yet be familiar with them, I thought creating their lock screens was the perfect approach, especially since the movie was so phone and social media-forward. One of my favorite aspects of this carousel is the details.

  • Regina's lock screen is as badass as she is, featuring a notification from her biggest fan (her mom) and lions, symbolizing her status as the queen of the jungle.

  • Karen's lock screen includes her password just in case she forgets (so smart to put it somewhere she’ll never lose it!) and a dictionary widget, because sometimes words are hard. We also have a Notes widget, nodding to a future post in the campaign.

  • Gretchen's lock screen has a self-affirmation because if she can't get validation from Regina, she has to do it herself. She also has a reminder to wear pink in order to keep her status in the plastics.

  • Cady's lock screen reflects her passions: Africa, math, and her besties, along with a to-do list that might contain some nefarious tasks.

  • Janis' lock screen features her own embroidery art and a cheeky social media comment notification from Damien. Janis’ blasé attitude also means she might have the names of her besties spelled wrong in their contact - she doesn’t care.

  • Damien's lock screen is fierce and glamorous, featuring some tea because he loves to gossip. Despite his dislike for the plastics, you KNOW he's still watching Karen Shetty's TikToks.

  • Aaron's lock screen is a bit bland, just like his character, featuring the North Shore logo (he's on the soccer team, duh) and a piece of gum, hoping Cady gives him one someday. Don't forget those irritating automated photo reminders—he might want to delete those photos of him and Regina!

These lock screens not only introduce the characters but also give a glimpse into their personalities and lives, making them relatable and engaging for the audience. Reactions to these assets were overwhelmingly positive! I’ve included a few of the comments we recieved:

chisamayas Omg drop these as full wallpapers!! Karen's is so cute I need it

sillysapphicpsycho we need the full images!!

lifeof._victoria All they're wallpapers match they're story and personality, smart

rachelramos2284 Should I actually make the Cady, Regina, and Janis pictures my new wallpapers? Yes, i definitely will

laahdoshine Janis' wallpaper is so beautiful!!!!!

With all creative, we are legally required to include the title treatment, rating block CTA and legal lines. Not wanting to "disrupt” the world we created with these lock screens, we created a final end card with all the nitty gritty.

Karen’s Notes App: We all keep weird things in our Notes App: grocery lists, reminders, baby names, that one text you’ve written out that you’ll never send…So what would Karen Shetty’s Notes App include? I dove deep into the mind of Karen to find out.

  • Reminders For Me =] has the moment from the movie where you see Karen’s “lightbulb” go off and we knew we had to include that along with a list of to-dos mentioned throughout the movie.

  • How to say words is a nod to Damien’s line in the 2004 film where he says Karen once asked him how to spell orange and a similar line in the 2024 film where he says she put a “d” in the word.

  • I HAVE IDEUHZ is a nod to Karen’s song in the movie “Sexy.”

  • Stuff I look cute in echos the iOS feature where you can “cut out” yourself from photos and track your cute outfits. I promise, it’s a thing.

Again, reactions to these assets were overwhelmingly positive! I’ve included a few of the comments we recieved:

evie_noteevee_ AWWEEE IMAGINING KAREN DOING A LIL MOUSE DOODLE IS SO CUTE AH

marisa.my She was the best character

lauren_jesson Not the d in orange

wrldofstratton her face card >

ryquelmelantz "How to say words" NO WAY LMAOO

Paramount+ Burn Book: It wouldn’t be a Mean Girls campaign without a Burn Book. For this Instagram carousel, we worked with various teams across Paramount+ streaming for approval to “burn” some characters. To write the burns, I channeled my inner Regina George and tapped into some grool Gen Z slag to create the ultimate P+ burns. IP used in this carousel include Yellowjackets, RuPaul’s Drag Race, School Spirits, Criminal Minds: Evolution, Sister Sister and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

The five six love languages of Mean Girls: What is the love language for the cast of Mean Girls? Combing through the movie, we determined the love language based on lines and scenes from each character. But…our sixth love language? Thats only for the queen bee herself, Regina George.

Again, again, again (!!!) reactions to these assets were overwhelmingly positive! I’ve included a few of the comments we received:

okylehoneygummy "Karen discovered the safe joy of dancing with theater boys" That part 💖

jizuyaa PHYSICAL TOUCH KAREN NATION RISE

laparajita_m_ can regina get angry at me...

rachelramos2284 This is too cute!!!! I'm obsessed with Angourie, Auli'i, and Reneé

2004 to 2024 Video: Keeping to my “Junior Plastics” strategy pillar, I wanted to find a way to link both movies. Initially I toyed with the idea of "similarities and differences between the films but didn’t want to create a “divide” so to speak between movies and fandoms. Instead, I took a “finish the line” approach and think it turned out, well, so fetch!

Damien Compilation: Selfishly, one of my favorite characters (in both films) is Damien. And in the 2024 film, his character really popped off with some of the funniest lines. Here is a compilation video I put together of some of Damien’s best moments.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you! I’ve saved the most exciting part of this campaign (for me personally) for last. I had the asolite pleasure of getting to interview Tina Fey and the cast of Mean Girls. Typically, we have zero talent access for post-theatrical campaigns so getting time with talent was a big deal.

Who is Most Likely To… Part 1: This cast of Mean Girls is relatively new to the scene so I wanted to use my time with them playing “Who is most likely to…” in order to introduce them to the world in a way other outlets hadn’t yet as well as have a little fun.

Who is Most Likely To… Part 2: After the interviews and having a general idea of the content we got, I knew it was going to be good. I anticipated getting comments asking for “more” and “part 2” (which we did) so I decided to split the content into two different videos for increased engagement and viewership.

Tina Fey Look Back: I can’t imagine what it is like to create a movie in 2004 and have it become as iconic as it has and deeply relevant 20 years later. I wanted to spend my time with Tina talking to her about this success and the difference of going from movie to stage to movie musical.