Paul Levesque chats Bray Wyatt’s return.
The conclusion of WWE’s Extreme Rules Premium Live Event saw the return of Bray Wyatt. He had been released from the company in the summer of 2021.
On the lead up to Wyatt’s return, there were a number of Q.R. codes pushed out and plugged onto WWE television. On commercial breaks and at house shows, Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ would play in the arena with a red light centered around either the ring or entrance area.
TheWrap has a piece about Wyatt’s return and how it had a positive impact on WWE’s television ratings. Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque commented on the build up to Wyatt coming back and felt it was a massive payoff.
We asked ourselves how we could bring back Bray Wyatt in the most engaging way possible. So we created ‘The White Rabbit Project,’ intended to lead our audience down this literal rabbit hole of content to help build anticipation for Wyatt’s return at Extreme Rules on Peacock. It started with flickering lights in arenas and continued with the release of other easter eggs, like hidden QR codes within episodes of SmackDown and Raw that led viewers to more clues that kept them guessing, and tuning in, each week. It culminated in what we believe was a massive pay-off for our fans – and for WWE.
This is a great example of how WWE is uniquely positioned as a sports and entertainment property to harness the power of our shows and our social following to develop multimedia, long-term storytelling that can help produce meaningful aggregated audiences.
Wyatt’s first in-ring segment since coming back closed the latest episode of Friday Night SmackDown. To hear POST Wrestling’s recap of that, head over to this link.
