Enlisted by CNN Creative Marketing to collaborate in promoting seasons three and four of the HLN Original Series “Vengeance,” 2C gave the campaign a cinematic feel, opting to approach the launch promos more like main titles in style and pacing and delivering elements that heighten a sense of danger through contrasts. 

“Vengeance” is an HLN Original Series about revenge, betrayal and murder. Each season follows 10 true-life mysteries through all of the twists and turns that lead to arrests, verdicts and justice. “Vengeance – Killer Coworkers” premiered Sunday, January 5, and the campaign will evolve for season four – “Vengeance – Killer Families” this summer.

With campaign elements that include launch spots, key art, the HLN Original Series open, episodics and graphic toolkits, our concept takes the familiar scenes and objects from our work and home lives and injects them with a True Crime twist. The scenarios are simple – a desk, a break room, a kitchen, a living room – but each has been tainted with murder so it’s both familiar and shocking, normal and unsettling.

To create these completely custom scenarios, we used a combination of 3D elements and compositing. Heavy shadows and shifting darkness isolate the focus on the scene of the crime while a desaturated palette helps emphasize the blood stains in each location, embodying the element of murder. The story is told with titles, as authentic audio from the show provides the pacing.

“By developing a toolkit of a distorted normal, it becomes powerful in its simplicity, and we love that the CNN Creative Marketing team allowed us to run with these ideas,” explained 2C Creative Director Ben Frank. “As they say on their website, ‘Creative comes before Marketing for a reason,’ and that philosophy is 100 percent put into practice.”