Acne Brand Debuts Teen Dramedy Series ‘The Benzacs’ on Instagram

In the vein of teen classics such as Mean Girls, Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles, acne treatment brand Benzac, with help from Deutsch New York, has launched The Benzacs, a teen dramedy series that will unfold on Instagram.

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/1u9TUqGfIG/embed/[/instagram]

The series will focus on four teens — Ivy, Cam, Oak and Essy — who aren’t in the cool kids club, The Benzacs, but certainly want to be. The story will be told with 22 15-second videos over a three week time period beginning this week. The content will also include 80 series-related images.

The Benzacs were first introduced on YouTube one month ago and that original video has achieved over 1 million views.

The story, hashtagged #MakeMeABenzac, will unfold on the main @Benzacacne Instagram feed, but each of the four characters will add to the story from their individual Instagram accounts.

The series was teased  on Instagram beginning last week:

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/1eDlLVGfEW/embed/[/instagram]

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/1tyZW4mfA1/embed/[/instagram]

Here are the first two episodes:

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/1vHgJTmfEb/embed/[/instagram]

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/1xnrFzGfCt/embed/[/instagram]

Here’s one of the characters, Ivy, introducing herself:

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/1vBwHQC8u4/embed/[/instagram]

Each day’s Instagram activity has been given its own hashtag to make the story easy to follow. The first two days are #benzs01e01 and #benzs01e02.

Series cinematographer Mark Williams and has mentioned it in his Instagram feed:

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/1wbDgCMPmL/embed/[/instagram]

Benzac is touting the series on its Facebook and Twitter pages:

4 friends. 4 feeds. One story. Get more of The Benzacs on Instagram! #MakeMeABenzac https://t.co/RoAWbnriTx

— Benzac (@BenzacAcne) April 21, 2015

An offline “Meet the Benzacs” campaign will also roll out across TV with ad placements on teen-focused networks such as TeenNick, MTV, MTV2, Comedy Central and ABC Family.

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Steve Hall

Steve Hall is a marketing professional, publisher, writer, community manager, photographer and all-around lover of advertising.