HOW hot is HBO’s programming?
So hot that people are willing to scale the side of a building to watch it on a huge TV screen.
That’s the message of HBO’s newest billboard from the minds at BBDO, which began construction about two weeks ago on a building near Madison Square Garden.
The billboard, at 721 7th Ave., will feature a huge TV screen, with mannequins in front of the screen watching HBO shows.
As time passes, more and more mannequins will be added to the display – with some of them appearing to rappel down the side of the building while lowering couches and other pieces of furniture from the roof on which to sit.
“Our subscribers like to get together with family and friends to watch our Sunday-night original programming,” says Eric Kessler, president of sales and marketing for HBO.
“This billboard will humorously represent the lengths people will go to watch HBO original programming.”
Kessler says that, in the next few weeks, the billboard will begin to promote the network’s epic new sword-and-sandal series, “Rome,” which debuts in late August – even though, for the moment, HBO has leased the billboard only through Aug. 19.
The ad is part of the network’s new $10 million promotional campaign for “Rome,” its biggest, most expensive marketing push ever.
It is also part of the latest wave of outdoor advertising to incorporate 3-D or interactive elements to draw people’s attention.
Other examples have popped up on two billboards in Times Square: The giant Calvin Klein perfume bottle that’s being occupied by living models for two days this week and the Mountain Dew sign on which pedestrians can incorporate digital pictures of themselves.