BBDO Launches Voyeuristic Site and Film for HBO
Originally played on the side of a building in NYC, a new video and microsite promotes the channel, and not a specific show.
Digital agency BBDO has created a new campaign for HBO that pushes the envelope of multiple story threads within an online video, and centers around the theme of voyeurism.
The HBO Voyeur Project is primarily a video project that “slices away the wall” of an apartment building to show what’s happening simultaneously on each of the eight floors. The characters, assembled into numerous plotlines, occasionally interact with each other between the floors. The video itself, however, isn’t promoting a specific HBO title or film, but is intended to promote the channel itself as a purveyor of interesting stories.
“That was a way to do what was sort of a projected billboard that subscribed to HBO’s creativity. A microcosm of things you might see on HBO,” said Brian DiLorenzo, executive director of content for BBDO. “Everything that is in it is not related specifically to promoting any other show that they have. It’s about an expression of something different, or taking an idea and turning it on its ear a bit.”
HBO’s Voyeur Project is presented in a number of formats, including a life-size projection on the side of a building, a Web site at HBOvoyeur.com, HBO On Demand and HBO Mobile. The first showing of the Project, on June 28th, took place in New York on the corner of Broome and Ludlow in the Lower East Side with little promotion. The same day, HBO put up a microsite and began showing portions of the film on On Demand and Mobile. To promote the site, HBO is running banner ads on Yahoo and other sites, along with movie trailers and television commercials, according to DiLorenzo.
“We wanted to find a way to be true to the original event and allow you to play with it a bit more,” said DiLorenzo. “We wanted to develop a site with the notion of a city populated with interesting things to watch.”
The Project, which incorporates nearly two hours of video, has been in development for a year. It was directed by Jake Scott, son of director Ridley Scott, and incorporates soundtracks from DJs and composers including Scott Hardkiss, Randall Poster and others.
