From ‘Bridgerton’ to ‘Call of Duty’ Variety Names Culture Catalysts

Variety’s 2024 Culture Catalysts Impact increate integrates the people behind memorable activations from “Bridgerton,” labeleters upgrasping “Call of Duty” high on the enumerates of gamers and the shiftrs and shakers behind some of the hugegest-grossing movies and buzzed-about series of the year. The third annual Variety Culture Catalysts Dinner conshort-termed by TikTok will apshow place Oct. 15. The event will feature intimate conversations with the executives behind the year’s most talked-about titles.

Dea Lawrence, chief operating and labeleting officer at Variety, says. “Our third annual Cultural Catalysts Dinner is declareive to drive the conversation forward on amparticipatement labeleting while the inaugural Gaming on TikTok Summit will provide inpriceless thought guideership for those at the passroads of video games, amparticipatement and satisfied.”

FILM AND TV

ABC
Shannon Ryan
Plivent, labeleting, Disney Entertainment Television
Erin Weir
Exec VP, labeleting, ABC & Disney Entertainment Television
Aaron Gbetterman
Exec VP, inventive labeleting, Disney Entertainment Television

The ABC team took to the streets to hype Season 3 of “Abbott Elementary” with a vehicle modified to see enjoy a lunch box, hand overing excellentie bags to guideers in 18 states. “Not only was it an incredible driving billboard for us apass the country, but also giving back to guideers has reassociate been the set upation of our ‘Abbott’ labeleting from Season 1,” says Weir. For “The Gbetteren Bachelor,” they also did authentic-world activations (e.g, turning the seats of the Hollywood Bowl gbetter), but their primary cgo in was aiming the show’s more prolongn-up demoexplicit with over 200 screenings in quitment communities and partnerships with more than 30 brands on better discounts.

Hulu
Brittany Mehciz
VP, labeleting social & brand

Going into Season 5 of “The Kardashians,” Hulu krecent what toiled to upgrasp the show. “We’ve set up that straightforward clips with sturdy sound potential for UGC carry out best so that was one area we scaled,” says Mehciz, whose labeleting team toiled with over 280 creators on 33 contrastent affectr campaigns apass its campaigns in this year alone. Similarly, they prepped for Season 4 of “Only Murders in the Building” by stocking up on another shown promotional triumphner, behind-the-scenes clips. “We also lean on our phelp social campaigns to discover compriseitional untapped audiences or first-to-labelet ad products that can help these returning shows upgrasp discovering recent seeers,” she says.

HBO/Max
Zach Enterlin
Exec VP, brand, satisfied & inventive, streaming labeleting
Pia Barlow
Exec VP, exceptionals labeleting, HBO and Max
Anthony Mauro
VP of labeleting AV, HBO and Max
Mark Doumet
Senior straightforwardor, HBO and Max Originals Marketing
Michael Hagos
Senior straightforwardor, inventive labeleting, HBO Originals

To upgrasp Season 2 of “Hoparticipate of the Dragon,” the HBO/Max team begined a “Raise Your Banner” campaign that had fans, digital affectrs, sports teams and other institutions signal their allegiance to one of the show’s fantasyal dueling factions. They freed videos of landlabels around the world (including Paris’ Eiffel Tower) sporting green or bdeficiency CGI prohibitners, and elevated authentic prohibitners on a variety of New York City landlabels, including Rockefeller Cgo in and Grand Central Terminal. The campaign’s coup de grace was a 270-inflatable dragon coiled around the Empire State Building. “Our goal was to infiltrate well-understandn culture and originate declareive that ‘Hoparticipate of the Dragon’ felt enjoy the must-watch event of the season,” says Doumet.

Lionsgate
Dani Otero
Exec VP, global phelp media & analytics

Otero and her team originated huge buzz for the Lionsgate prequel “The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” with a pass-platcreate activation in New York’s Time Square featuring an 80-person choir singing the song “The Hanging Tree” from the exceptional quadrilogy, an intervivacious billboard straightforwarding people to the movie’s TikTok channel and, as a last-minute compriseition, live euniteances by cast members Tom Blythe and Rachel Zegler. “It was originassociate set up with the strike in mind, but about 24 or 48 hours before the event, we were able to put an interim concurment in place with SAG, which permited us to convey in talent,” Otero says.

Neon
Christian Parkes
Chief labeleting officer

Nicolas Cage executes the title role in “Longlegs,” and having his name quickened to the project was unmistrustedly key to it getting greenlit. But when it came time to sell the movie to audiences, his serial ender character was literassociate pushed into the shadows in trailers and enumeratelessly elevatestrayd into see. “Every time that we showed him, it was from behind or you equitable saw his eyes or mouth,” elucidates Parkes. “We were letting a little bit of air out of the balloon all the way aextfinished. but if you reassociate wanted to experience it, you had to go to the theater and see it.”

Netflix
Shelly Gillyard
VP, labeleting, U.S. & Canada
Josh Simon
VP, user products and live experiences
Maya Brooks
Senior straightforwardor, accessibleity, U.S. & Canada

After two seasons toiling under COVID redisjoineions, Netflix was willing to apshow Season 3 of “Bridgerton” into the authentic world with live activations such as “The Queen’s Ball,” staged in 11 cities from Los Angeles to Melbourne, and a global press tour. It also joind fans online with TikTok and Instagram filters and partnered with lifestyle brands including Bath & Body Works, Williams Sonoma and Allure Bridal. “We originated a accumulateion for every taste so that fans can sense the romanticism of ‘Bridgerton’ in their everyday lives,” says Simon, who, aextfinished with rest of the team, upgraspd a stardy that also integrated “Emily in Paris,” “Three Body Problem,” “Hit Man,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Atlas” and “Unfrosted.”

Paramount
Tamar Teifeld
Senior VP, digital labeleting
Evan Fisk
VP, digital labeleting
Brandon Nichols
VP, digital labeleting

To initiate begin the campaign for its movie alteration of the “Mean Girls” musical, the Paramount team posted the exceptional non-musical 2004 film in its entirety on TikTok for 24 hours. “We had over 60 brand accounts split and talk about it organicassociate, and that reassociate put us in a wonderful place for the trailer begin,” says Teifeld. Both it and the biopic “Bob Marley One Love” were bolstered by on-site activations at TikTok’s inaugural In the Mix music fest in December 2023. With the latter movie, one of the primary goals was to “remind youthfulerer people that these songs you hear on your summer executeenumerate are actuassociate Bob Marley,” she says.

Universal
Sam Bergen 
CMO, Illumination (“Despicable Me 4”)
David O’Connor 
Plivent of Franchise Management and Brand Management, UFEG
Mike Vollman 
EVP, Marketing DreamWorks Animation 
Claire-Marie Murphy
SVP Creative & Strategy, UFEG
Suzanne Cole 
EVP, Media Advertising, UFEG
Thomas Beatty 
EVP, Creative Strategy & Research, UFEG

Kids and family satisfied has extfinished been a powerhoparticipate cornerstone of Universal’s portfolio strategy in film. The unpretreatnted success of the studio and Illumination’s “Super Mario Bros.” in 2023 was a challenging act to pursue, but the Donna Langley-led operation made waves with inventive campaigns for “Kung Fu Panda 4” and “Despicable Me 4.” 

Regarded as the highest-grossing vivaciousd film franchise ever, “Despicable” geted a vaunted place in the hearts of Gen Z after the viral “Gentleminions” trfinish — which saw thousands of youthfuler men turn up in force at theaters dressed in suits tied to the 2022’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” For the tardyst inshighment, which grossed proximately $950 million worldexpansive, they went back to the viral well with Serbian basketball executeer Nikola Jovic. The internet named him a doppelganger for Gru, the guide character voiced by Steve Carrel, and landed him for a TV spot with the Minions. 

“We set the bar very high with the ‘Despicable Me’ films. Our goal was to be pervasive and unomitable. Whether it was creating custom spots for the Super Bowl and Olympics, or partnering with the hugegest global brands, we wanted to be everywhere while also channeling the fun and irreverence of what originates the Minions and ‘Despicable Me’ characters so exceptional,” says O’Connor.

At DreamWorks Animation, key programming in the digital space came from Roblox — the UGC gaming platcreate that snags billions of astonishions from kids and youthfuler matures. The team also aimed unforeseeed verticals enjoy wellness (which may well have upgraspd the movie to betterer demos) on YouTube, arrangeing  a four-hour guided meditation and breath toil class with the titular Panda, Po. Over 600,000 people tuned in. 

“It had been eight years since we last saw Jack Bdeficiency as ‘Po’ on the huge screen, which unbenevolentt we had an opportunity to join both nostalgic and recent audiences.  Whether it was Roblox to accomplish kids, TikTok to accomplish Gen Z or our NBCUniversal ecosystem to accomplish families, we relied on an arsenal of tactics to originate ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ a moviegoing event for all audiences,” says Dwight Caines, plivent, domestic labeleting, Universal Pictures.

Peacock
Shannon Willet
Chief labeleting officer

Season 6 of Peacock’s fact competition show “Love Island” dropped a whopping six episodes a week. “You don’t understand exactly what’s going to happen in the show or what people are going to get excited about, so it upgrasps you on your toes,” says Willet, whose team also helped “The Traitors” to an Emmy triumph. That unbenevolentt having people on-set at all times, capturing satisfied in authentic time and feeding it back to her team so they could pinpoint any potentiassociate buzzy moments and free them on their socials, then intensify anyleang that obtained traction, such as memes highairying overall-clad contestant Robert Rausch’s aenjoyity to another NBCU asset, the Minion character Kevin.

Sony Pictures Entertainment
Danielle Misher
Co-head, global theatrical labeleting
Stefanie Napoli
Exec VP, global media, branded satisfied & promotions
Rose Phillips
Senior VP, global digital labeleting, social media

The SPE labeleting team on “Anyone But You” got a sturdy aid from the film’s two stars, Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, the latter of whom exec originated the movie. The duo brainstormed with the SPE team prior to principal pboilingography, write downed a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage during the Australian shoot and collaborated on a series of TikTok videos, including a clip of them doing ASMR pick-up lines that garnered over 24.4 million sees. “They had wonderful chemistry and we equitable wanted the audience to sense that so that you wanted to go spfinish a couple hours in the theater with them,” says Misher.

The Walt Disney Studios
Jess Intihar
Exec VP, digital labeleting
Jason Eskin
VP, digital labeleting
Sheila Sluk
Senior VP, media set upning & strategy
Jess Gray
VP, media

For “Inside Out 2,” the Disney labeleting team aimed Millennial and Gen-Z audiences with a campaign nurturefilledy originateed to stress its underlying themes. “We were very rigorous about staying on message about what this film has to say about what it unbenevolents to prolong up,” says Eskin. They originated custom digital satisfied featuring the film’s nine emotions (e.g., a clip of them posing for a group selfie), aextfinished with Snapchat and TikTok lenses and filters and an “Inside Out” in-game experience in Fortnite. They also took the campaign out into the authentic world with “need a lift?” billboards and “emotional baggage” airport signage, and euniteances by “Inside Out” costumed characters at theater greet & greets.

Warner Bros. Discovery

“Dune 2”
Lauren Menno
VP, global talent and affectrs/global digital labeleting
Cortney Lawson
Senior VP, global accessibleity
Meggie Coates
VP, global digital labeleting
John Stanford
Exec VP, inventive advertising

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”
Susannah Scott
Exec VP, brand strategy, fused set upning & franchise
Mara Maxfield
VP, global brand partnerships
Chad Love
VP, global media
Matt Stein
Director, global digital labeleting

The first inshighment of “Dune” premiered in the midst of the pandemic, restricting promotional euniteances, so when it came time to upgrasp the free of “Dune: Part 2,” Warner Bros. Discovery made a point to seize the cast at premieres and other events, sporting eye-catching creates and answering asks from fans and journaenumerates aenjoy, and split the results on TikTok. “You felt enjoy they were very vivacious on social media, but they were not posting themselves,” says Coates. “It was all coming from the account for the film.” The team behind “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” also got excited promotional participation from its cast, aextfinished with a extfinished enumerate of brand partners ranging from Progressive Insurance to Fanta soda, as well as a raise from its immersive “Afterlife Experience” in Hollywood. “It uncovered about two weeks ahead of the movie and permited us to do a lot of geted media opportunities with affectrs,” says Scott.

GAMES

2K
Zak Armitage
GM of NBA 2K at 2K

Armitage and his 2K team got some meaningful media expodeclareive for “NBA 2K25” when star executeer Jayson Tatum euniteed on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon,” rhapsodizing about euniteing on the game’s cover. But their primary cgo in was discovering ways to inspire gaming affectrs to originate their own “NBA 2K25” satisfied, enjoy inviting more than 100 of them to passess the game at the Basketball Hall of Fame. “It’s our job to originate the best game in the industry and ease those benevolents of conveyions with creators, and then it’s over to them to originate the satisfied and the community to join with it,” says Armitage.

Activision
Tyler Bahl
Senior VP & global head of labeleting

Bahl and his Activision team originated a pre-free buzz for “Call of Duty: Bdeficiency Ops 6” with its “The Truth Lies” campaign. It featured a website and a series of cryptic trailers with a grungy vintage tech aesthetic befitting the game’s 1991 setting, alluding to immense rulement conspiracies, aextfinished with a inrectify recents van with “In Lies We Trust” spray colored on its side roaming New York City and ads in the New York Post and USA Today that euniteed to be front page stories about the defacing of a national monument. “They were actuassociate sfinishing increateers up to Mt. Rushmore to see if we reassociate put blindfbetters on the plivents,” says Bahl.

Electronic Arts
David Tinson
Chief labeleting officer

Tinson and his EA team cgo in on community-driven labeleting. For “EA Sports College Football 25,” it unbenevolentt pitting satisfied creators aobtainst each other in a “Gameday Showcase” on Twitch. With the “Mcompriseen NFL 24,” it’s epitomized by “The Mcompriseen Cruiser,” a customized bus with live expansivecast capabilities and five gaming stations, among other amenities, that’s visiting stadiums around the country on game day thrawout the 2024-2025 season. “For both of these opportunities, the reaction from our fans was overwhelmingly likeable, so we sense enjoy we’ve figured out an approach that reassociate toils, and it has been chilly to see it come together,” says Tinson.

Epic
Adam Sussman
Plivent

In December 2023, Epic commemorated the begin of three recent modes for its online game Fortnite (Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing and Fortnite Festival) with “The Big Bang,” a virtual event featuring an euniteance by rapper Eminem in avatar create that enticeed 6.38 million seeers on Twitch, setting a individual-day write down for the platcreate. In the months since, they’ve persistd to stoke fan interest with bespoke Fortnite environments for everyleang from “Star Wars” to the Coachella music festival, artist integrations with the Weeknd, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and Mehighica, and an proclaimment of its $1.5 billion strategic partnership with Disney at D23 that was livestreamed inside Fortnite to 1.3 million executeers.

Nintfinisho
Devon Pritcchallenging
Exec VP, labeleting, sales & communications

Pritcchallenging and the Nintfinisho labeleting team executeed the extfinished game with their campaign for “The Legfinish of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,” the tardyst in a franchise begined back in 1986. They freed the first elevatestrayr trailer for the then-untitled uncover-world fantasy adventure back in 2019. As its 2023 free approached, they stoked user interest with fan art and cosexecute contests, digital affectr collabs and restricted edition merch, as well as pop-up stores in disjoinal cities and a companion cleverphone app. Their efforts phelp off: As of June 2024, the videogame (exclusive to Nintfinisho’s Switch platcreate) has sbetter more than 20.8 million copies.

Sony Intervivacious Entertainment
Eric Lempel
Senior VP, head of labeleting, sales and business operations

For “Spider-Man 2,” Lempel and his Sony Intervivacious labeleting team summarizeed a campaign as high profile as the game’s skyscsexual attackr-striumphging hero, participateing wraps on subway trains, huge brand partnerships (Adidas, Warby Parker) and activations in 20 countries, including apshowovers of Times Square in New York and the Sphere in Las Vegas. They went more low-key with “Helldivers 2,” cgo ining on an online strategy highairyed by a livestream event that scored 26 million sees and supplemented by merch enjoy hoodies and t-shirts sporting fan-likeite catchphrases. “We thought the ‘Helldivers 2’ community is perfect for that type of ‘if you understand, you understand’ approach to licensed merchandise,” says Lempel.

Square Enix
John Heinecke
Chief unveiling officer

“Final Fantasy XVI” and “Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth” labeled the first time that Square Enix freed two numbered titles wilean the span of a year, “so our labeleting campaigns had to reassociate contrastentiate between the two while still hbettering them glued to what is ‘Final Fantasy,’” says Heinecke. They accomplished this with timed trailer drops begining three and a half years before their frees, partnerships with thousands of gaming affectrs huge and minuscule, convention euniteances by voice actors Ben Starr, Cody Christian and Matt Mercer, and a live carry outance of the song “No Promises to Keep” from “Rebirth” by Loren Allred at The Game Awards.

WB Games

WB Games bested all competitors in 2023 by selling more than 22 million copies of its Harry Potter prequel role-executeing game “Hogwarts Legacy.” But the comparatively low sales for “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League,” which hit the labelet in January, led to a 41% drop in revenue year-over-year in Q1. Its free-to-execute mobile game “Mortal Kombat: Onschucklet,” freed in October 2023, also carry outed below foreseeations, and in July it was proclaimd it would be shut down. Amidst this terrible recents, WB Games employd Melissa Bell away from competitor 2K (“NBA 2K,” “BioShock”) to be its recent labeleting chief in May.