For three consecutive years I helped History Channel promote the upcoming season of Vikings, the most popular show on cable television at the time.
To get the word out, we went to where the geeks are—the San Diego Comic-Con. We created an omnipresent experience that took over the city's bars, restaurants, streets, dog parks, and even the harbor. We designed and built an entire Vikings-inspired village and feasting hall where visitors could pose for various photo-ops while guzzling mead from branded drinking horns. Longboat races gave convention-goers a chance to cool off and compete for prizes.
VIKINGS BLUDGEON BOOTH
Fans waited in extra-long lines for the rare opportunity to be featured as a weapon-wielding warrior in a battle scene from Vikings. Participants would provide an email address at an electronic kiosk and then choose a costume and weapon. After receiving a fresh set of battle wounds from a professional makeup artist, a countdown would begin: 3–2–1... at which point the participant begins chopping and stabbing as if in the heat of battle, at which point fake blood would spray into the face of the warrior. All the action was filmed from multiple angles with high-speed cameras and then the footage was automatically edited and spliced into a bank of pre-selected scenes from the actual show. By the time each participant left the Booth, they already had a branded clip of the whole bloody affair waiting in their inbox—recorded in exquisitely gruesome slow-motion detail—ready to share via social media.
Comic-Con guests could tour the San Diego harbor in one of our (amphibious) Vikings-inspired Duck Boats that picked them up at the convention and at local hotels.
During just the 2014 Comic-Con campaign, 2,219 attendees registered for the Vikings experience, resulting in more than 10,000 social posts generating more than 150MM impressions. The campaign was featured in more than 220 articles in publications ranging from Adweek to Rolling Stone. The entire integrated campaign for Season 3 generated a whopping 808MM impressions across Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler and Instagram.
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