Real-life hauntings are what nightmares are made of. So to bring awareness to Haunted, Netflix’s new series about real people who have been possessed by demons, abducted by aliens, or terrorized by ghosts, we needed a scary good campaign that would instantly pique the interest of core horror fans.
Knowing that our perfect audience was on Reddit, we decided to launch a surprise mini-campaign that would span across the platform. It brought life to our core horror fans' worst nightmares with sketches from some scary good artists. We started with beautifully terrifying first look illustrations inspired by each episode that were shared into popular subreddits to give us some early karma, start conversation between us and the fans, and help pave the way to our larger nightmare initiative.
Once all of the first looks were released, we asked the Reddit community one question “What are your most vivid and consistent nightmares?” and watched as the replies started pouring in. To keep Reddit’s attention and shock them with an unexpected real-time response, we called upon the 5 artists we had on stand by, including some big names like Kim Jung Gi and Jim Mahfood, to instantly start sketching their personal interpretations of some of the best nightmare stories we received.
Two days, 150 nightmare submissions, and 31 sketches later we saw huge results with press mentions from outlets like IGN, SlashFilm, Bloody Disgusting and Dread Central. And more importantly, core fan sentiment was off the charts. Making this an experience that crept into the minds of fans and lingered - kind of like a good haunting.
