Marketing The Drum Awards

How Beetlejuice revived with a Gen Z digital blitz

By The Drum, Editorial

The Drum

November 17, 2025 | 2 min read

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice won silver in Media Campaign at The Drum Awards, alongside gold in Media Omni Channel and Media Use of Emerging Media. This campaign, by Hearts & Science, targeted Gen Z with immersive digital experiences, leveraging insights into their gaming and media habits, and successfully brought the cult classic to a new generation.

After 36 years in the afterlife, Beetlejuice rose again in 2024. 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,' the sequel to the cult classic Beetlejuice, resurrected Michael Keaton’s famous ‘bio-exorcist’ character with members of the original cast and nostalgic nods to the original story.

However, times had changed. The 80s kids who loved the original film had grown up. And the new kids on the block, Gen Z, hadn’t even heard of it. Which was a big problem, because they were our target audience. We’d set ourselves quite the challenge: capture the attention of the digital generation, just as summer vacation was ending, and going back to school was on their minds.

To quote the title character, it was time to ‘turn on the juice and see what shakes loose,’ with an immersive, multi-touchpoint digital experience designed to meet Gen Z where they were at. We did a deep dive into Gen Z’s gaming and media usage to create fresh, unexpected approaches that got our audience excited about the film, leveraging our insights around the way these digital natives entertain themselves to get Beetlejuice on their radar. From the Olympics to Roblox, to Vizio’s first-ever voice-activation remote takeover, we unleashed Beetlejuice across all kinds of channels to bring a new generation of viewers a taste of the afterlife…figuratively, of course. And, with the film opening at #1 at the box office to make it the second-biggest September debut of all time, it’s clear that Beetlejuice is still the ghost with the most.

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Marketing The Drum Awards

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Hearts & Science

Hearts & Science, an Omnicom Media Group agency, transforms data signals into meaningful connections between brands and consumers that drive exponential growth. Purpose-built...

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