Immersive media

Just caught up with this US campaign for HBO from BBDO from last year designed to reinforce HBO's positioning as a premier storytelling brand.

The agency created a multi-layered, multi-platform story about an assassin living in an NYC apartment block which was premiered in public one evening on the blank side of a downturn apartment block (people were invited to attend as 'voyeurs' via flyers given out in advance by a street team) and via a dramatic cinema ad. This drove people online to hbovoyeur.com where they could explore the material further, sign up for mobile video updates and the like and, crucially, also to HBO On Demand where people could watch the core movie. The website got 3 million unique visitors in its first week, sparking a good deal of blogging and microblogging activity.

Quite apart from the quality of creative execution, this strikes me as an excellent example of a multi-dimensional brand experience. It also underlines the way in which TV is increasingly intersecting with, or creating, online communities.