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Though nothing in the WWE Universe is ever truly over, especially when someone like Bray Wyatt is involved, it's hard to imagine fans turning on the former Universal Champion any time soon, especially after the incredible combination scavenger hunt/roller coaster ride that brought him back to the promotion as part of the now-infamous White Rabbit Project.
Told via breadcrumbs, blink-and-you-miss-it QR codes, and links that required everything from basic knowledge of Dante Alighieri's Inferno and the alphabet of the Yautja of the Predator franchise, Paul “Triple H” Levesque and company found a way to keep fans engaged for the better part of a month and generated a reported 2.7 million social media interactions while the Extreme Rules “Premium Live Event” was on Peacock. When Wyatt's schtick began shortly after Matt Riddle took care of Seth Rollins in a sweet Fight Pit match, fans absolutely lost their minds, and the sheer, unrelenting volume of the crowd shook through television sets the world over no matter how much WWE tried to normalize the volumes.
Needless to say, Wyatt already looks like a genius for his incredibly creative introduction, but who is responsible for the fantastic multi-media interaction? Is it Wyatt all on his own, simply handing in work for WWE to distribute at his time of choosing, or was there more support from behind the scenes that helped his situation out exponentially? While he may never know the exact breakdown, Trips stopped by The Wrap to walk about the return of Wyatt and how they were able to parlay the occasion into a viral marketing strategy that would make the rest of the wrestling world extremely jealous.
Triple H is over the moon with WWE's White Rabbit Project.
Speaking with
“We asked ourselves how we could bring back Bray Wyatt in the most engaging way possible,” Levesque said. “So we created ‘The White Rabbit Project,’ intended to lead our audience down this literal rabbit hole of content to help build anticipation for Wyatt’s return at ‘Extreme Rules’ on Peacock. It started with flickering lights in arenas and continued with the release of other easter eggs, like hidden QR codes within episodes of ‘SmackDown’ and ‘Raw’ that led viewers to more clues that kept them guessing, and tuning in, each week. It culminated in what we believe was a massive pay-off for our fans – and for WWE.”
From there, Levesque explained why such a campaign was able to succeed and why the WWE fanbase is unlike anything else in the sporting and/or entertainment world.
“This is a great example of how WWE is uniquely positioned as a sports and entertainment property to harness the power of our shows and our social following to develop multimedia, long-term storytelling that can help produce meaningful aggregated audiences,” Levesque said.
Could Levesuqe's plan have worked if the reveal was anyone other than Wyatt, the performer fans have been begging to see back in a WWE ring pretty much since he was released in the first place? Maybe so but to a lesser degree. Fortunately, WWE crafted the perfect campaign to complement their returning Superstar, and all wrestling fans are better off for it.
