Marshalls' "Kelly" Viral Video

Challenge // How does Marshalls launch a store within a store targeted at juniors when juniors see Marshalls as the place their Mom's go to get deals?
Solution // After establishing that our client knew what they were up against and they were willing to take a risk I conceived of a disruptive video featuring the wildly popular Kelly (Liam Kyle Sullivan) from the "Shoes" video. The Kelly character embodied the aspirational Marshalls junior shopper, in a tongue and cheek way, that made juniors reconsider what they previously thought of Marshalls. In other words the video made Marshalls cool. This was 2009 before most people in advertising had heard of Youtube influencers.
Role // As ECD I conceived of the idea and sold it to our clients and was part of the production.
Results // To date this video has more than 3,500,000 views. We made it to the million mark in the first 4 months with virtually no media budget and MTV News even wrote about the project.