Research showed our sci-fi fans demanded attention to detail and carefully crafted world-building. We needed to convince them Altered Carbon would deliver on the promise of the sci-fi genre—to transport them to another place—by bringing this to life in the marketing in a unique way.

We knew we couldn’t rely on the typical two-dimensional poster art or a piece of custom digital content to truly capture their imagination, and we also knew typical sci-fi tropes like flying cars and futuristic gadgetry weren’t enough to differentiate our series from others. So our idea was to literally breathe life into our key art and create three dimensional sculptures in the real world. We replicated the reusable bodies featured in the series in painstaking detail, placed them in bus shelters in West Hollywood, California, and waited for them to be discovered.

We transformed five two-dimensional bus-stop ads on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles into full size, breathing male and female sculptures that passersby could touch and react to as if the bodies were in some kind of stasis, seemingly alive but without consciousness. An internal motor installed in the chest cavity of each body created a realistic continuous breathing effect timed to mimic the slow breaths of deep sleep. A silicone goo mimicked the nutrition gel seen around the unconscious bodies in the series. The sculptures appeared in custom steel housings that replaced the existing ad units, and custom backlit signage was added to the top and bottom of the shelter, resulting in a complete customization of the bus shelter ad unit.

The execution was live from January 29 to February 25 and 2.1MM impressions were booked.

The results were testament to the fact that we had caught the attention of consumers and compelled them to talk about the series in anticipation of the launch:

-The effort culminated in 15MM earned impressions, seven times the volume of the original investment.

-We generated more than 7,000 bus shelter-specific mentions on Twitter.

-Altered Carbon was the most talked about new streaming series the month it launched. (Nielsen Social, February 2018)

-The shelters were featured in multiple newscasts and coverage received 2.6MM video views.

Finally, Altered Carbon was the single most-searched-for TV show in February according to Google Trends, proving we had created significant interest in and credibility for the series.

Most entertainment companies take their key art and simply repurpose it to run in two-dimensional OOH units. To promote the sci-fi series Altered Carbon on Netflix, we completely reinvented bus shelters, transforming our key art into a three-dimensional art piece in the form of a body sculpture. But we didn’t stop there. Our sculptures appeared to be alive and breathing and were covered in a gel substance to mirror the exact look of the bodies in the series. Their skin was squishy to the touch to entice passersby to want to feel for themselves, which they did in large numbers.

Our targets were sci-fi fans, both geeky hardcore enthusiasts and broader fans who were less passionate about sci-fi, but could be convinced to view a series if enough people talked about it. Other components of our media plan reached fans in contextual sci-fi environments through digital and targeted television, but we wanted an additional stand-out element that would be as interesting as the show itself and would create enough conversation and intrigue to reinforce the credibility of the series.

Los Angeles does not have the strict rules of other DMAs in terms of what is allowed in public-facing OOH units, so we secured five bus shelters on Santa Monica Boulevard, a highly trafficked area that was sure to catch the attention of commuters as they walked or drove by, creating enough shock value that they would share on social media.

Netflix is the largest creator of original content and strives to maintain a permanent spot on the shortlist of pop culture’s most beloved brands. To do that, the marketing for their original series must spark as much joy and social conversation as the content itself.

The goal was no different for Altered Carbon, an original sci-fi thriller tackling big questions about ethics, humanity, and the dangers of immortality with a unique premise: technology has separated humanity from physical bodies, allowing humans to live forever. We needed to spark conversation and intrigue about the series to catch the attention of sci-fi fans and convince them that this series was worth watching.