Superheroes and villains y across our screens and battle it out to win our hearts on a daily basis, littering our entertainment world with comic book TV shows and movies. Amid this cluttered and competitive environment, Net ix tasked us with creating passion and anticipation around the launch of their newest original show, Marvel’s Iron Fist, perhaps the least-known character in the Marvel franchise. It was clear we needed superhero strength to make Iron Fist have a lasting impact.

Iron Fist recounts the story of Danny Rand, an orphaned billionaire who earned his power of the “Iron Fist,” an indestructible force activated through harnessing his chi, by conquering a dragon in the mystical city K’un-Lun. Atypical of traditional superheroes, he actually earned this power versus experiencing a supernatural occurrence. He returns to New York City to ght “The Hand,” a corrupt organization looking to destroy the world.

We knew sports were our big bet to make an impact outside of the core gamer fan base. Instead of aligning with March Madness and getting lost in a cluttered space, we tapped into the fastest growing sport, Ultimate Fighting Championship—a show packed with testosterone, superpower punches and outrageous ght scenes. To truly have a knockout on our hands, we needed to forge colossal alliances. We did this in two ways.

First, we tapped Conor “The Notorious” McGregor, who has been dubbed the biggest ghter since Muhammad Ali, and ESPN, to chronicle the story of an almost- famous ght. ESPN anchor Stan Verrett and Conor McGregor bump into each other, lock eyes and challenge each other to a ght. Unbeknownst to Conor, Stan gains the power of the Iron Fist by studying Danny Rand’s ways. When McGregor sees a clip of Stan punching through a concrete wall, he calls off the showdown. We strategically seeded out the branded content sequentially across ESPN’s TV, digital and social channels along with tapping ESPN talent’s social handles.

Second, we sponsored the UFC 209 Vegas Fight, one of the biggest of the year with in-venue and Pay-Per-View branding throughout. But we didn’t stop there — we invented the rst ever “Sidekick” experience, a custom, branded commentator segment streamed on Facebook Live throughout the night as a companion to the viewing experience. We leveraged famous UFC talent to host the stream, analyzing the ght, discussing Iron Fist and answering any questions from viewers.

In ltrating UFC with the creative storytelling of our branded content, coupled with the heavy- hitting talent involved, created an instant knockout success. ESPN content garnered an impressive 41MM impressions, with 42% being earned media from press and social. UFC reached nearly 5MM people with 192K views of the “Sidekick” experience and a Twitter engagement rate 10 times higher than the benchmark. Not only was Iron Fist the most social program of the day, but also the most binged Net ix drama of Q1.