CSI: VEGAS

Senior Social Producer | Creative Strategy & Production

CBS

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CULTURAL STRATEGY

CREATOR PARTNERSHIPS

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL PRODUCTION

EARNED MEDIA

TURNING AN INTERNET SUBCULTURE INTO A NETWORK TV MOMENT

THE OPPORTUNITY

• Josh Nalley had built a massive online following by doing one thing exceptionally well: playing dead. I saw an opportunity to bring the internet joke into the actual world of CSI: Vegas by casting Josh as a corpse on the show.

THE IDEA

• This wasn't a traditional influencer partnership where a creator posted about the show.
  I wanted to put him in the show.

  I pitched casting Josh as a corpse on CSI: Vegas, turning the thing his audience already knew him for into an actual television role. Then I worked across casting, production, publicity and marketing to get the idea approved and onto the set.

THE RESULT

• The stunt became a story on its own.

  Josh's journey from TikTok corpse to CSI corpse generated earned media beyond CBS's own channels, including coverage from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian.