With a new HBO original series premiering, HBO had the challenge of developing a multi-platform campaign to create awareness, generate a must-see level of buzz/conversation, establish the show's brand for a mass audience and drive tune-in to the premiere.
In September, over 4 months before the series premiere, True Detective launched a Facebook page in tandem with an immersive site, www.darknessbecomesyou.com, to mysteriously unveil in-story content and become an online companion to the edgy new series. In-season the Facebook page drove traffic to DarknessBecomesYou.com, which tallied over 929,000 visits and over 730,000 unique visitors with 60% of site usage on mobile and tablet devices. The full "Darkness Becomes You" campaign, garnered over 1.8 million visitors. With an in-season average time spent on site at nearly 6 minutes, users were fully immersed in the world of True Detective.
The Facebook page itself engaged fans with a moody voice, reflecting the overall tone of the show. Following each episode, the show's page highlighted climactic moments with an iconic episodic photo paired with a clip for fans to relive the "OMG Moment." The page also pointed to new evidence weekly driving to DarknessBecomesYou.com for a deeper look helping grow the page to over 728K fans following the finale.
The freshman series generated more buzz than any other HBO Season 1 series. The show cultivated a highly engaged fan base of celebrities and critics who regularly posted their praise helping True Detective buzz grow steadily from Episode 2 and peak in the finale.