This past Sunday, HBO celebrated the Season Two premiere of Ballers by giving fans a chance to be featured in the show’s popular opening title sequence. Ballers cast member Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson kicked off the campaign with an video encouraging fans to share their own workout video with hashtag #BallersIntroContest. The social activation is running on Twitter and Instagram, and will culminate in a special, fan-created intro to air on HBO in August.
Within the first 24 hours, the campaign drew in over 5,000 entries and 9,300 mentions of the contest hashtag. Both #Ballers and #BallersIntroContest helped generate 978 million total impressions, a 90% increase from Season One’s premiere day. Johnson’s kickoff video alone garnered over one million views.
The team spread the word on all of the show’s social channels and tapped the biggest Ballers advocates to ensure they were aware of the opportunity. Since not all the videos will make the final cut, HBO and 360i rewarded participants by responding to them directly with personalized mini intro videos all day Sunday and will continue to do so throughout the week. So far, submissions have run the gamut from weightlifting, to boxing, to American Ninja Warriors in wedding dresses, to the truly inspiring, with entries from veterans, amputees, and recent transplant survivors.
Johnson and the cast spent much of the premiere evening RTing and commenting on their favorite ones. Select submissions will be featured on the campaign’s custom microsite, BallOutTheIntro.com.
