AS just got an email about this NY Times article about HBO and Campfires efforts to promote the new show “True Blood”. I previously wrote about this campaign and the lengths they are going to in order to promote the show. In May they began sending cryptic letters in black envelopes sealed with red wax to people like horror film bloggers and subscribers to the horror movie magazine Fangoria and such. The above video is of a video blogger talking about the letter she received (it’s long, but kind of worth watching to see the direction they took.
Campire has been putting a tremendous effort into this campaign. According to the Times it’s needed “full-time attention of six Campfire employees who are monitoring message boards, maintaining a fake blog and coordinating the precisely timed release of new materials.” They also mention the 20 freelancers are working on other technical aspects of the campaign.
This is very comfortable territory for Campfire, a production house and advertising agency, whose founders produced “The Blair Witch Project”. This campaign will have run for four months by the time that show begins airing in September. HBO’s goal is to have the marketing tell as much of the back story as possible so that the series can get right into the story when it begins.
It just seems like HBO is trying really hard to grab another hit series. Has this campaign caught your attention? Are you planning to watch the series?