Best Campaign Generating Brand Awareness
Agency: Civic Entertainment Group
Campaign: Boardwalk Empire – Boardwalk Campaign
Client: HBO
HBO series Boardwalk Empire tells the story of Atlantic City at the dawn of Prohibition. For the premiere, HBO needed to position the show as an epic crime/period drama with marquee screenwriting (Terence Winter, Emmy Award-winning writer of The Sopranos) and directorial (Academy Award winner, Martin Scorsese) talent.
The network wanted to create a campaign (targeting adults 25+ with a male skew) that conveyed the show’s central themes – money, power, pleasure, bootlegging and the golden era of Atlantic City – and differentiated Boardwalk Empire from the cluttered television drama line-up.
The key strategy was to connect the 2010 consumer to the 1920s. A media campaign, which ran from August 16 to the end of September, included TV, print, outdoor, online and radio. Additional media support promoted the schedule among consumers that might have missed the premiere.
HBO partnered with three national brands to spotlight key themes of the series – bootlegging (Canadian Club), fashion (Bloomingdale’s) and gaming and gambling (Caesars Atlantic City and parent company Harrah’s).
Caesars held a red carpet screening and press event with the cast. Harrah’s four Atlantic City properties reserved 1,920 rooms for $19.20 during the premiere weekend and 35 restaurants and bars ran 1920s pricing. OOH and a wrapped train traveling from New York to Atlantic City was used to market the campaign, as well as branding placed on all consumer touchpoints, such as key cards and plasma screens throughout the hotels. The Pier Shops at Caesars also featured 1920s-themed merchandise.
Bloomingdale’s constructed a 115 ft. boardwalk at the entrance to the 59th Street store and decorated its windows with 1920s themes, including a distillery and a supper club, featuring live actors outfitted in the retailers ’20s-inspired suits.
Themed events were held in 20 locations co-sponsored by GQ. Cast members and the show were featured on the cover of Bloomingdale’s Fall 2010 men’s catalog, while in-store displays advertised the show and a national sweepstakes.
Canadian Club was featured in 5,000+ retailers and restaurants with more than 130,000 promotional pieces. Month-long “Prohibition Happy Hours” offered a free Canadian Club cocktail at speakeasy venues in NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
Boardwalk Empire debuted at a 10.1/14 household rating with 4.8 million viewers – the best start for an HBO series since the 2004 premiere of Deadwood.
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