Don't say, do: how HBO's Voyeur showed the world how great a storyteller it is.

Jonny (thanks Jonny) pointed me in the direction of the above describing HBO's 2007 Voyeur activity, a campaign that won the Best Integrated Promotional Campaign at this year's Cannes.  great example of how brands should do rather than say.

advertising so often get's in the way...  we want people to think of us as great storytellers so let's make an ad about storytelling.  this campaign missed that cul-de-sac by a mile and instead created a campaign that immersed viewers in stories on their terms...  this was the objective from the start, this from the info on the above YouTube page:

"the campaign goal was to fortify HBO against increasing competition by strengthening the brand's relationship with super-fans. Incredibly engaged in all forms of media, they seek intelligent, cutting-edge entertainment experiences. Super-fans recognize HBO as one of the few brands that respects their intelligence. They don't just watch HBO programs - they're completely involved and engaged before, during and after a show.The creative task was to ignite this same level of passion around the HBO brand itself"

a website was of course integral, but mobiles, on-demand and blogs took the story much further.  for me though the best bit about this campaign was the outdoor projection.  we too often miss opportunities to use real spaces to bring campaigns to life...  context tells us that as content proliferates consumers prefer and expect real experiences (cost of recorded music coming down whilst live goes up etc)

innovative - digital-led - ways to take campaigns to the streets are too few and far between, but the reward is there for the brands that can integrate the physical and the digital so seamlessly and to the mutual benefit of each.

Comments

[farisyakob]

we gave it at gold at the clios - lovely work

the only sadness is the trouble between bbdo and bigspaceship

no one owns the idea! iterative, collaborative, recombinant.

can't we all win?

[chris stephenson]

not as long as it's viewed as 'winning' ... ideas belong to brands, if we can all take some collective credit for bringing them to life then all the better.