HBO's Two Tiered Beyond The Banner Campaign
- by Ken Liebeskind , February 22, 2002
Next Monday, the network will begin Shoskeles and Superstitial campaigns for Six Feet Under and The Laramie Project.
Shoskeles will be used for Six Feet Under, a drama that starts its second season March 3. Shoskeles are full screen animated ads with sound that take over the screen for a few seconds before leaving a banner that can be clicked to go to HBO's Six Feet Under site. They will run on the home page of Hollywood.com, TVguide.com and at selected areas of NYTimes.com.
Superstitials for The Laramie Project will run on Hollywood.com, NYTimes.com, Ifilm.com and Rollingstone.com. Microsites for the film run on all these sites except Rollingstone. The NYtimes microsite will include articles about the Matthew Shepard case that have appeared in The New York Times. The film premieres March 9.
The Shoskeles and Superstitials run in addition to various sized banners. All the advertising was created by EarthQuake Media/New York, which picked up creative elements from HBO's mainstream campaign from BBDO.
The campaign runs until the shows premiere.
"Shoskeles take over the entire page and Superstitials provide a true viewer impression," says Robert Davidman, EarthQuake's chairman/CEO, explaining why the formats were chosen. The Shoskeles are gateway ads that must be viewed before going to the sites. They are being used because they are multi platform and run with Netscape and Internet Explorer, he says. The goal of the campaign is to drive viewers to the shows.
EarthQuake has worked for HBO for more than a year and ran a campaign for Band of Brothers last fall.
Davidman predicts the new campaign will reach a large audience, but he is unsure of the numbers.
