The campaign launched as a mystery--with no explanations--and let its audience coalesce organically. By design, the campaign started small so that as the elements grew more main stream, we’d already co-opted audience members who provided the most authenticity and energy to the community. As this group came together, we didn’t just give them a story, we gave them the entire universe where the story unfolded.

The first chapter of our story involved the discovery of a synthetic blood by the vampires and what it meant to their erstwhile secret existence. Playing off that, we developed a strategy that mirrored the same strategy that real vampires would employ. We utilized multiple web sites, over 100 online and On Demand videos, compelling mailings, on and offline advertising, live events, a campaign comic book, extensive traditional media and street teams to advance our story and add depth to the world we created.

Tune-in – 6.6 million viewers tuned in for the first episode, blowing away targets (+/- 3MM). [Source: Nielsen]Web Traffic & Engagement – We received 29.5 million page views and over 100,000 user contributions. [Source: Google Analytics & Omniture SiteCatalyst]Video Viewership – Through the creation of online and HBO On Demand videos, we tallied 6.4 million online video views and kept our audience engaged for a total of 50,000 hours. [Source: Tube Mogul & YouTube]PR Impressions – We developed our campaign to first target niche communities and gradually build to mass awareness. This resulted in coverage from hosts of blogs, fan sites, trade publications and major news publications. In total, we amassed over 50 million potential PR impressions. [Source: Alexa.com (Online Traffic) & Individual Publication Distribution Numbers]