We can sense that you’re reading this sentence right now. How? Because like Criss Angel, modern magician and master of illusions, we can read your mind. And right now, you’re reading THIS. Frankly, we could do this all day, but we’d rather tell you about how we used our powers to join forces with A&E to promote the season premiere of Criss’s new show, Criss Angel: Mindfreak.

Our approach was simple: create a non-traditional and shareable campaign that would embody Criss’s skills in deception and be as unexpected as Criss himself. The result, Freak Your Mind did just that. The site was basically an elaborate hoax that allowed users to go online, fill out a friend’s information and then send them a dynamic link to what looks like a generic Criss Angel video. What their victims wouldn’t know until a few seconds into the video, however, was that the video was customized and generated just for them. In the video, Criss used a deck of cards to “magically” discover the receiver’s name and full phone number and then followed up by calling them and telling them to watch the show.

Nearly three million people visited and sent the customized video pranks to their friends. As a result, the season premier of Criss Angel Mindfeak was the highest-rated cable show in its time slot, beating out the season finale of the hit show, The Shield. It remains the highest rated Mindfreak episode of all time.