Context of placement

Yes, another one about context, it's my new favorite thing, maybe I should add it to my list on the right there.

A couple of months ago, I stumbled upon an interactive campaign in a Midtown subway transfer: a promotion for the current new season of Big Love. The ads showed a bunch of people going about their everyday business, with headphone jacks above each person's head. So, I went up to one and tried out one or two of the jacks (I suspect the reason was a combination of "I'm in marketing, let's see what this is," and "Cool, something I can play with").


After reading a couple of things about the campaign just now (sorry this is sort of old news but please bear with me, I've been thinking about this a bit lately), I found out that the tag – "Everyone has something to hide" – directly relates to the content of the audio files – each person confessing their secrets.

The fact that I didn't know this detail kind of speaks to why I kept thinking about the campaign for a few weeks after the fact. On one hand, I am not sick of the "audio jacks in subway ads" thing yet, and like that there is some level of engagement involved, instead of static ads just talking at you*.

On the other hand, I wonder if the context of where this campaign was placed was taken into account enough**. These ads are placed in an underground transfer between Times Square and Port Authority. Both stations (and this transfer between them) have high, high foot traffic. The sea of people pouring through that transfer every day has enough momentum to pick you up right along with it, if you hesitate at all. That, combined with the state of mind one might be in at the time ("Oh, this long tunnel again" is how I usually feel), may not make for someone actually stopping to listen to one (or more) of these audio tracks. Maybe I had back luck, but the one I put my headphones into had a really slow start. My boyfriend and I were sharing ear buds, and we both got impatient after about 2 seconds of the "background noise" intro. I'm sure the copy was great, but sadly this was not the time or place to find out.

In short: If you're leading with a strategic idea, but the idea only lives in a place where people can't properly consume it, it falls flat and doesn't accomplish all that it set out to. If this campaign had been placed somewhere people wait instead of walk – bus stops or subway platforms, for example – I would have listened to every single one of the secret confessions by now... all I ever seem to have at bus stops is time (though that may not be applicable anymore, as I recently encountered a family of roaches on a Brooklyn bus and am on an extended bus hiatus).

* (I like the photography, too. The look/feel/lighting vaguely remind me of Jeff Wall.)

** I say "enough" because I read that the headphones attached to the L.A. ads were not included in NY because it was "assumed that New York commuters would bring their own." Interesting observation – and pretty true in a lot of cases – though I'm not sure how willing an average commuter would be to unplug from their favorite music to listen to an ad.

New Next: Sink your teeth into it

Once again, this was not the headline originally written for the column. It's not too bad, though, so oh well. Hi guys. I have the flu, I think. This is a post I don't have to put too much effort into right now, because I wrote it almost two months ago. Convenient! Here you go.


It's no secret that HBO has been in the vanguard of storytelling for the past decade - but not only in its programming. The pay-TV giant has been revolutionizing its category, marketing itself not just as a network but as an entertainment property.

Last year, in addition to promoting the end of The Sopranos as if it were a blockbuster film - going so far as hiring Annie Leibovitz to photograph the cast for a Vanity Fair spread - HBO broke ground with HBO Voyeur, which showed the company understands the importance of promoting its brand as much as what it airs. In case you missed Voyeur, it was the winner of dozens of awards, including the Gold Clio for consumer-targeted site and Cannes Promo Grand Prix, and it was written up on more than 500 blogs. Watch the story at hbovoyeur.com.

Refusing to rest on its laurels, HBO continues to adapt to its surroundings, constantly reinventing itself. By the time you read this, the network will have promoted its new vampire series, True Blood, for four months before it even premiered. The company enlisted independent agency Campfire to help in promotion. Previously involved in Audi's "Art of the Heist" and "Beta-7" for SEGA, Campfire is no stranger to creating excitement around a launch.

Back in May, a handful of horror enthusiasts received mysterious letters written in dead languages. The fans came together online to help each other decipher the letters, and eventually discovered a Web site guarded and run by a vampire. The site revealed that a synthetic blood, called Tru Blood, had been developed in Japan, and that it could finally give vampires a chance to live among humans. [ed: What? That sentence sounds weird. I didn't write it that way.]

While people swarmed to forums and debated the implications of humans and vampires coexisting for the first time in history, fans began to receive packages containing "samples" of Tru Blood in vials. Fake want-ads were placed, searching for the samples mailed to vampires around the world from its inventors in Japan. Ads for the beverage appeared in mass channels, vending machines of the stuff were constantly marked "Sold out," and a fake news story reported that a Tru Blood truck had overturned in Texas and flooded a highway.


Promotions for vampire-friendly products and services began to surface, too, including a dating site, Lovebitten, a bar in New Orleans called Fangtasia and a windowless motel containing minibars stocked with Tru Blood. Concurrently, ads calling for vampires' equal rights were run on behalf of the American Vampire League.

HBO and Campfire added an incredible amount of detail and countless layers of content to what could have been a simple promotional campaign. People can either immerse themselves in it, clicking on links that take them deeper into the story, or they can just see the work in mass channels - in some cases, for a fictional drink rather than the show itself - and look forward to True Blood. HBO has made itself into an entertainment brand, and guess what? People are very happy to play a game with them.

I still haven't seen the show, much to my chagrin. I don't have HBO and haven't tried hard enough yet to find a friend who does and also watches it. How is it?