This June, HBO will launch the second season of True Blood, a soap opera featuring psychics, vampires, and shape-shifters based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series by Charlaine Harris. The story takes place in a world where vampires have discovered a synthetic beverage that can slake their thirst for blood. No longer a threat to humans, many vampires reveal themselves to the public, form advocacy groups, and begin dating human waitresses. Set in rural Louisiana, the vampires’ struggle against prejudice carries strong echoes of the civil rights movement.
Last year’s season drew an average audience of 7.8 million viewers per episode. This was due, at least in part, to one of the most bizarre marketing campaigns in history.
HBO hired an agency called CampFire NYC to use a technique known as “viral marketing.” The strategy was to pique interest in True Blood by deliberately confusing fact and fiction. This was primarily done online, where Web sites such as TruBeverage.com were created, complete with product descriptions of various synthetic blood types. Vampire profiles began to appear on Myspace, Facebook, and livejournal complete with fake news and fake discussions on how Tru Blood would affect the vampire political structure. YouTube clips began to circulate in which actors in fangs snarled into webcams that the hackers who had found their secret vampire Web sites would pay.
Viral marketing even spread to the offline world. Outdoor ads for Tru Blood went up in some cities and vending machines were even modified to sell the mysterious substance (strangely, the machines were always sold out.) There are even sightings (or rumors of sightings) of Tru Blood delivery trucks.
With the success of the first season, HBO has ratcheted up the viral marketing. BloodCopy, a blog created last summer, has been expanded. The blog now features ads by real companies promoting fictional products. Much like Tru Blood, the products advertised on Bloodcopy are “marketed” to fictional vampires. A Geico ad exclaims that, “Even vampires can save 15%.” Harley Davidson advertises a fictional motorcycle to vampires with the tagline “Outrun the sun.” Occasionally, existing products are endorsed, but from the perspective of a fictional vampire. It is rumored that more of these ads are scheduled to appear in major media outlets.
And what is the public response to this? Judging by the posts on Bloodcopy, it would seem to range from mild annoyance to smoldering rage. Several posters state that they are not amused and vow never to watch True Blood. A similar outrage followed Columbia Broadcasting’s adaptation of The War of the Worlds on Halloween, 1938 (the radio show that told H.G. Wells’ story of a Martian invasion through a series of phony news broadcasts.)
The blogosphere was also disrupted when BloodCopy approached Gawker Media, a network of commercial blogs. Gawker’s marketing department agreed to feature posts from the viral marketing campaign on the company’s blogs—a move that thoroughly irritated much of Gawker’s editorial staff. The campaign played this arrangement to the hilt, and posted that BloodCopy had been purchased by Gawker Media. CampFireNYC (the masterminds behind the ruse) then sent out an email inviting people to a rooftop party celebrating the merger. The bottom of the invitation states that, “Tru Blood will be served. Kindly refrain from wearing silver jewelry.” This caused BusinessInsider to report that BloodCopy had actually been acquired by Gawker Media. In a retraction, Nicholas Carlson wrote that the viral marketing campaign had “crossed a line.”
HBO and Gawker’s marketing department have defended their actions by pointing out that vampires are not real. Chris Batty of Gawker said he was surprised so many people “took this at face value.” A representative from HBO commented, “Considering that it’s clearly stated that a vampire is writing this blog, the faux aspect of it really isn’t hidden.”
The problem with this defense is that there is a community of self-identified vampires, which existed long before Charlaine Harris wrote her first vampire novel (and many vampires actually do write blogs). Furthermore, HBO is aware of this community, and attempted to bring it into the viral marketing campaign. During my research for Vampires Today: The Truth About Modern Vampires, I was shown a press release promoting True Blood that was sent from HBO media relations to a vampire house. The vampires wisely chose to ignore it rather than add to the confusion. The real vampire community (as this group has come to collectively refer to itself) is in the strange position of experiencing an unprecedented level of media attention, even as they are often pejoratively characterized as being unable to discern media from reality.
Don Rimer, a former police officer and “occult crimes expert” recently claimed that the Twilight novels by Stephanie Meyer have caused teenagers to become delusional and murderous. So at the same time viral marketing is vigorously blending fact with fiction, there is a concern that Americans lack the ability to distinguish vampire novels from reality.
Is the viral marketing campaign unethical? Certainly the claim that “vampires are not real” is a poor defense for such an elaborate ruse. This position invokes a worldview in which reality consists only of what can be empirically proven to exist, and that anyone who believes otherwise is foolish or somehow deserves to be deceived.
While this worldview has strong rhetorical value, we know that few people actually subscribe to it. According to a recent Pew Forum survey, 79% of Americans “mostly or completely” believe in the reality of miracles. 68% mostly or completely believe that angels and demons are active in the world. Popular or extra-ecclesiastical beliefs, such as the idea that certain people require blood or energy to sustain their health are more vulnerable to ridicule than tenets of organized religion like the existence of God, heaven, and hell.
But suppose HBO launched a miniseries based on The Left Behind books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Would they dare to promote the show through a blog featuring phony news about missing persons and the growing power of the United Nations? Would they send press releases to dispensationalist Christian groups? Of course not. It has always been true that “art imitates life and life imitates art,” but those who blur the line between fact and fiction should remember that empirical knowledge comprises only a small portion of what the average person believes.
Tags: hbo, new religious movements, television, true blood, vampire community, vampires
Thank you for this exploration of an interesting topic in pop culture.
Two thoughts came to mind as I read your article. First, scholars such as Michael Barkun have referred to "fact-fiction reversals" where an aspect of fiction is decoded as fact within a given context. Thus, it is not surprising to see the confusion in advertising between facts and fiction, even though it does raise ethical concerns which you rightly note.
Second, readers should be wary of the claims of many so-called experts in relation to "occult crimes," and Donald Rimer's claims referenced in your article are especially suspect. Man of the claims related to occult crimes have been connected to the phenomenon of satanic panics, which scholars like Jeffrey Victor have rightly labeled a contemporary legend. And Rimer's claims about a cause and effect relationship between vampires in pop culture and occult crimes simply cannot be substantiated. Such claims breed and perpetuate stereotypes against minority (sub)cultures.
Your quasi-moral outrage about a successful ad campaign is quite puzzling. Perhaps if you spent some more time working out your own presumptions and presuppositions you could make a better argument for or against what is actually the case... But as it stands now, it seems more like some stuffy, Politically Correct blustering that is tinged with some embarrassment. (That's at best... At worst it seems faux and self-serving and just an opportunity to promote your own work.)
Your final thought experiment with regard to "Left Behind" is quite revealing as I'm quite sure that the executives for the novels and/or the movies are probably green with envy and are asking themselves, "Now why didn't we think of that?" BTW, they have been sending out press releases about their end time novels for years... Read the blurbs on the books and see if they really acknowledge the fictional aspect of their work. From the beginning Christians have readily mixed and blurred fact and fiction in service of their movement. For that matter, so have Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists, Animists, Atheists, Humanists, Evolutionists and so on and on... Why aren't you up in arms over that?
Really now, back to the study and think this thing through: Fact, Fiction and Meaning – How do they intertwine and interact in our minds and lives? Playfulness, Pretend and Make-believe – How are they a part of human maturation? Advertising, Promotion, Enticement and Entertainment – How do the aforementioned categories of Fact, Fiction, Playfulness, Pretend, Make-believe and Meaning play into these human endeavors?
"Politically correct blustering that is tinged with some embarrassment." Who is really dishing out the outrage here? At least Laycock didn't resort to ad hominem attacks. You wouldn't happen to work for HBO would you?
Did you hear that in an effort to promote the second season of “True Blood,” HBO launched a marketing campaign in which real brands like Geico and Harley-Davidson pretend to reach out to vampires?
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I think it's an outstanding marketing ploy - I only wish I'd seen some of it.
As for people being sufficiently loopy to confuse fantasy for reality... hope they can eventually learn to sort it all out.
Maybe if they'd stop indulging every Sunday morning, Fridays, & Friday evenings, at their Churches, Synagogues, & Mosques and took a couple of science courses they'd be less likely to wonder whether or not to wear garlic around their necks.
People wonder why it is so hard for those who identify with real vampires to break misconceptions about themselves to others. When you take fiction and purposefully feed off of others blood-sweat-and-tears attempts at making sure real sanguinarians and psy vamps are treated as fairly as possible, and what have you, it nearly pummels there life long work. On the other hand, I have to admit that it is a clever marketing tactic.
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