Season 4 of the hit HBO show True Detective is in full swing in January and the company did a really creative promotional campaign for a new season starring Jodie Foster that involved icy billboards and macabre objects inside them.
What happened: HBO gets physical. In a marketing sense. The company has decided to highlight season 4 of Nic Pizzolatto-created show True Detective entitled "Night Country" with cool-looking installations-slash-billboards.
The icy theme is there thanks to Alaska's setting of the new season. Billboards come with additional police cordons and yellow tape, big cubes of ice with shoes and coats inside them, and some shattered ice nearby too. All of it looks quite unsettling, just the effect needed for a show about murders.
The campaign is heralded by MAP360 and Arsonal for HBO.
Here are some of the other True Detective billboards:
Why we love it: expanding the limits of a traditional billboard is a great exercise in creativity for brands. With this True Detective campaign, HBO shows both its ambitions for this season of the hit show and flexes its advertising muscles.
What are some other examples of cool OOH marketing: it's not the first time the company used physically enhanced billboards to promote a show.
That was the case with the excellent "The Infected Billboard" stunt in 2023 created by Dentsu Creative México. Taking place in Mexico City, the agency transformed a wall in the middle of one of the city's neighborhoods. The marketing stunt went viral on social media and gained millions of interactions.
Here's how it looked like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgYBSpTz-G0
Apart from the billboards, HBO used AR to promote its another show. Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon got the app treatment.
The streaming giant introduced the DracARys app for Android and iOS devices that allowed users to "hatch" their own pet dragon in a tamagotchi-like fashion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW-lxnmapJ4&t
Clever marketing from the streamers is cool and we're always happy to see creativity flourish.
See the world's largest kinetic sculpture inside Royal Caribbean's new ship
Why Kitcast is going to DSE 2023
