Dispatches From Elsewhere
Jason Segel's inspiration for Dispatches was an alternate reality game. So the series was, in part, an alternate reality game. And so, as social lead, I had to recreate on social... an alternate reality game.
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It's All A Game--No, Really
Jason Segel built Dispatches out of an alternate reality game—so we treated the marketing the same way. As social lead, I didn’t just “promote” the series; I designed and ran an ARG-native social experience that functioned like an extension of the show.
Because social was our only true real-time engagement engine, the KPI wasn’t impressions alone—it was active participation: repeat engagement, theory-building, and audience movement across accounts and platforms. To drive that, I created a structured framework of visual codes and editorial phases, then mapped a deliberate trail that moved viewers between AMC channels and talent accounts.
From pre-premiere through the finale, I executed a connected web of puzzles, intrigue, and Easter eggs—so every post felt like a clue, and the campaign rewarded fans for going deeper.
Balancing Heavy Hitters on Social
Dispatches had a dream cast—Sally Field, André Benjamin, Jason Segel, and Richard E. Grant—but each came with a different audience, digital footprint, and appetite for promotion. So I led a segmented social strategy that treated them like four distinct entry points, not one blanket campaign.
Alongside the ARG layer, I built a fandom-targeted acquisition plan with clear KPIs: broaden reach beyond AMC’s core audience and drive high-intent engagement.
We actively pulled in adjacent communities tied to each actor and their past work—reintroducing André 3000 to viewers who hadn’t seen him on-screen in years, and giving How I Met Your Mother fans BTS hooks around Segel—then funneled them into the larger mystery so social could do what it does best: turn curiosity into conversation.
Making the World (Literally) Come Alive
I was proud to work alongside a seriously talented digital team. They ran a full-scale ARG—with real-world actions that tied back to the show—and built in-world sites and exclusive assets that I intentionally threaded through the social campaign.
On my side, I led the social layer that made the experience feel alive day to day: I created an in-world “rewards tier” for press and fans who actively shared the series, used fandom conversation to inform drops in The Store of Beautiful Things, and programmed posts to live inside the characters’ playlists so even the tone of our content felt in-world.
When COVID hit, the job got harder. The IRL game had to pivot to fully digital overnight. But the strategy held: we adapted the puzzle trail for at-home play, redistributed clues across social and the in-world sites, and kept the intrigue accessible—so players could still participate (and new viewers could still get pulled in) even without the real-world layer.
