Challenge
For Smile, Paramount didn’t just want to tease the terror—they wanted to build it. With a film that thrives on discomfort, dread, and that now-iconic sinister grin, they needed an agency that could dream up original concepts and fully produce them from scratch. So that’s exactly what we did.
MediaNug developed 10 unique TikTok-first ideas designed to make viewers squirm, laugh nervously, and immediately hit “send to group chat.” Each video was fully produced by us—from concept to shoot to post—infusing the eerie essence of Smile into everyday moments, social trends, and horror-core edits that made people do double takes (and sleep with the lights on).
Solution
Over the course of the campaign, MediaNug delivered ten original videos that blurred the line between TikTok trend and psychological horror. Think: unsettling jump scares in unexpected places, creepy choreography, and smiling strangers showing up where they shouldn’t be. Our fully in-house production allowed us to control the tone, aesthetics, and pacing—so each video felt cohesive, cinematic, and just deranged enough to stop the scroll. The Smile campaign proved that when you invest in custom content that feels native to the platform and the genre, the audience won’t just watch—they’ll react, share, and look behind them. 👀 Paramount x MediaNug: smiles all around (but like… the terrifying kind).
