• by Susan Kuchinskas , September 30, 2008

When HBO's marketing team heard about the latest show in development, they licked their chops. True Blood is a sexy suspense series chronicling the lives of vampires finally able to live among humans, thanks to a synthetic blood beverage.

"We knew there would be not only cool opportunities to do innovative and creative stuff, we knew it would be a lot of fun," says Zach Enterlin, vice president of advertising and promotions for HBO.

The fun began in May with the launch of an interactive prequel, a cross-platform teaser campaign focusing on "Tru Blood," the artificial gore. It included two microsites. Chishio.jp was supposedly published by Japanese vampires, while revenantones.com was a bloodsuckers' forum. BloodCopy, a blog by Campfire, became the central hub for consumer interaction: Users went there after responding to ads that pleaded for help translating the dead language of vampires.

In June, a faux campaign for Tru Blood hit, with print and outdoor ads by ...And Company that read, "Friends don't let friends drink friends." TV commercials aped the "good life" approach of mainstream beer marketers. The product also invaded the real world: Beverage delivery trucks tooled around town, and vending machines in office buildings were marked with "sold out" signs, all placed by PhD/OMA.

The Tru Blood Web site, created by Behavior Design, followed the standards of the beverage category: A gateway page for age verification asked which century you were "turned." Users could answer a few questions about lifestyle and feeding habits to find their appropriate blood type.

"The product campaign really broke through in the market because it was so true to form for a beverage advertising campaign," Enterlin says.

A comic book from Spacedog/Top Cow made a splash at Comic-Con; hbo produced a mockumentary; there was a tie-in with Penguin Books, outreach to bloggers, a human-vampire dating service by Deep Focus and a fan wiki. Whew.

Enterlin says this kind of deep and massively integrated marketing campaign is now SOP for HBO's original programming. "What makes it a little unique is the show." Susan Kuchinskas