HBO last night lit up a large, cube-shaped video
installation outside One Restaurant, in Manhattan's Meat Packing District. Each of the four screens showed a
different angle of the same two-minute video, and you need to watch all four to
get the whole narrative. (Go to HBOimagine.com and you'll get it.)
Network co-president Eric Kessler walked about, telling
guests at the opening to "circulate, circulate" in order to get the full
effect. Then he guided The Wire to consumer marketing executive vice president
Courteney Monroe, who explained: "The whole experience is designed to articulate
the idea: it's more than you imagined, it's HBO."
"In today's environment, in marketing, you have to
communicate in a different way," Kessler said. "You want to engage the
audience."
The Web site guides viewers to "unlock" the puzzles within
the interconnected stories. For those who view all the content online, "we kind
of feed you exactly what has happened," Monroe
said.
The BBDO-executed campaign -- like HBO and BBDO's award-winning "Voyeur" promotion in 2007 --
doesn't highlight particular shows or anything that is on HBO.
"It hopefully
embodies the spirit that is HBO," Monroe
said.
From New
York, where it remains until Saturday (the 19th), the cube travels to Philadelphia (Oct. 1-3) and Washington, D.C. (Oct. 8-10 in Adams Morgan),
where Comcast will play host as the local affiliate, she said.
