It’s not every day that you get to help repackage one of television’s most beloved sitcoms for an audience that wasn’t even born when it first aired. But that’s exactly what Sony Pictures Television asked us to do — bring Seinfeld into the cultural conversation for emerging generations.
Seinfeld already has a legacy. Our job was to help grow its relevance.
The Challenge: Make Old Feel Gold, Jerry, Gold!
Syndication is powerful, but it’s also passive. For Sony Pictures Television, the opportunity was clear: use social media to shift an iconic show from background TV to front-of-feed content. If younger audiences are actively engaging with a show, it’s not just a nostalgic rerun — it’s IP with equity.
What started as a 30th-anniversary celebration of the premiere of Seinfeld has turned into a half-decade partnership.
The numbers back it up: According to Comscore, streaming shows saw up to a 60% increase in engaged social audiences following targeted campaigns on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. That kind of lift doesn’t just drive views; it directly correlates to how streamers evaluate a show’s marketability and fan momentum.
So, we built a strategy that would:
- Spark cultural relevance with younger viewers by aligning the show with current meme formats, the cultural zeitgeist, and trending topics.
- Reignite nostalgia with existing fans without losing the voice and tone that made Seinfeld special.
- Modernize the perception of the show to increase its value as a streaming asset.
Our Approach: Nostalgia, Reframed
In our first year with the brand, we drove a robust campaign to celebrate the show’s 30th anniversary. In the half-decade since, we’ve run yearly campaigns for Festivus, and we post ongoing content on Instagram, Facebook and X. In 2021 we launched the show’s TikTok channel and grew it to 470k followers and counting.
Our approach from the beginning has been to define the Seinfeld brand with its own social voice and target segment. Instead of one-size-fits-all posting, we planned a mix of evergreen, culturally relevant, and trending content types all framed through the lens of, “Does this make sense coming from Seinfeld?”
From there, we developed a multi-platform content plan that leaned into the following:
- Character-driven content: iconic scenes recut to match today’s humor and tone.
- Audience-specific humor: using Gen Z slang, Gen X tropes, and Millennial’s love of nostalgia to make the old feel timely.
- Reactive posting: jumping on trending sounds, memes, and cultural moments to weave the show into the social zeitgeist.
It’s a strategy rooted not just in creativity, but in data. Engagement is more than vanity, it’s also valuation. Studies indicate that shows with active fan communities and high shareability are significantly more likely to be acquired or promoted by streaming platforms. Why? Because attention translates to retention.
The Results: A Syndicated Comeback
Since we began our partnership with Sony Pictures Television, engagement metrics have seen meaningful growth across all platforms, particularly among 18–34 year-olds. Comments have shifted from “Oh, I remember this” to “Wait, why is this actually me?” And for Sony Pictures Television, the show has become more than a library title — it’s now supported globally by Netflix.
What started as a 30th-anniversary celebration of the premiere of Seinfeld has turned into a half-decade partnership of producing content for the show. Sony Pictures Television continues to invest across its social platforms to ensure it maintains a consistent, relevant presence engaging with a global audience. We’re continuing our thumb-stopping Seinfeld content and expanding our services with properties such as The Nanny and The King of Queens.
This wasn’t about reinventing a sitcom. It was about introducing it — strategically, culturally and creatively — to a new generation of fans. In the world of streaming, equitable value is essential.