An Appeal to Excellence

When HBO wanted to ratchet up the branding of its already well-known and respected trademark, advertising agency BBDO was ready, more than willing and able to break new ground for the premium network.

BBDO has worked with HBO for more than 20 years on the network's brand image, said David Lubars, chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO North America. In that time, the companies have collaborated on some of the most talked-about and creative branding campaigns in TV. But HBO wanted something different last year, and they got it from the agency that has been named more than once as “Agency of the Year” by Advertising Age, Adweek and Campaign magazines.

“BBDO is terrific at what it does,” HBO executive vice president of consumer marketing Courtney Monroe said. “They have done all our brand commercial work. They helped with our tagline, 'It's Not TV. It's HBO.' BBDO is the best in the business when it comes to 30- and 60-second spots. But they know that it now takes more than that to attract consumers and I credit David Lubars with a lot of that. He understands how to create experiences and connect with consumers in new and exciting ways.”

An example of that new advertising form came last summer when HBO launched its “HBO Voyeur” promotion. A five-minute film was projected on the side of a building in lower Manhattan depicting the lives of people in eight apartments. It was as if the side of the building had been peeled away to show each apartment, Lubars said.

“HBO is all about storytelling,” he said. “They are the best in the industry when it comes to that. So we decided to create an HBO story people could watch outside their living rooms.”

Showing the film on the wall was just the beginning, Monroe said. Once the concept was created, HBO and BBDO went about expanding it to include various platforms. Viewers could go online and get deeper story lines on the apartments' inhabitants. Other plots were available for viewers accessing the promo via HBO On Demand or mobile phones. BBDO shot three hours of content for the promo. It took over a year-and-half to create.

“It wasn't just an event,” Lubars said. “It was an experience; a cultural zeitgeist.”

The promotion went beyond anything BBDO had done before, Lubars said. But he noted, “There is no normal anymore. We have to think outside the box. I was part of the BMX Films project and that took a long time to create but it was very successful.”

Indeed, what started out as an unconventional online advertising campaign turned into a cultural icon. The Hire was a series of eight short films produced by Lubars when he was with Fallon Worldwide for the Internet in 2001 and 2002. All the films featured popular directors, starred Clive Owen as the “Driver” and highlighted the performance of various BMW automobiles. The series has since been made part of MoMA's permanent collection in New York City, and it won the first-ever Titanium Lion at Cannes.

BBDO has taken that “experience” branding concept to other clients as well. Ideas range from GE's “One Second Theater” and “Imagination Theater,” to a primetime TV show for Gillette, guerrila films for Havaianas, the “Inner M” digital platform for M&M's, a two-day sales event for Target featuring magician David Blaine and the design-driven “love/hate” campaign for New Balance.

The HBO Voyueur experience started simply, Lubars said, when BBDO pitched HBO on the “movie on the wall” concept. The project soon grew to include the other multiplatform aspects. “It remained very liquid as we went along,” Lubars said. “HBO is a creative company, and they have a core audience that wants the new, the intelligent. They don't want dumb reality and HBO doesn't have to lower their standards to attract an audience. It's an appeal to excellence for them.”

“We wanted to find a way to communicate the key differentiator for us,” Monroe said. “We're storytellers. That's what we do. We approach stories differently and with very high-quality standards. So we had to figure out a way to capture that essence. We had to illustrate why, when and how people access our programming because multiplatform is the evolution of our brand. It would have been lame to just tell viewers how we tell stories. So we decided to show them, and that is how the HBO Voyeur project became a reality.”

The point of the HBO Voyeur experience is that breakthrough advertising is no longer about a 30-second spot, Monroe said. It's about deeply engaging a company's brand across multiple platforms. “BBDO came up with this idea and it was something only HBO could do,” she said. “It was quintessential to HBO.”

Monroe said it's exciting to think what the companies will come up with next. To be sure, she has seen the stakes rise regularly. While at HBO, Monroe has overseen award-winning campaigns for many high-profile HBO properties such as Sex and the City, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm and HBO Films's John Adams. In 2006, Monroe was inducted into the American Advertising Federation's “Advertising Hall of Achievement.”

“We've certainly upped the ante,” she said. “Our tagline — It's Not TV. It's HBO — is more than just a tagline for us. It's a mantra. It's in our DNA to be innovative, cutting edge and unique. So staying ahead of the curve, of everyone else and ourselves, is a challenge. We're already starting to talk with BBDO about what's next.”

Lubars is excited about the possibilities, too. “It's a lot of fun working with HBO,” he said. “They are a creative company and we're a creative company, so it's a good partnership and they have a lot understanding and sympathy for what we're trying to do. The challenge is to come up with the next new great thing.”