Crafting a creative social campaign for such a visually striking show as The Night Of was no easy task. Our objective was to enlist fans of true crime and realistic crime fiction to watch, discuss, and advocate for The Night Of--an addictive, cinematic exploration of the modern judicial system. Taking cues from the cinematography of the series, we created content with a noir tinge with timing and tone that captured the show's unique style and themes.
Activate armchair detectives by dangling the carrot.
The social strategy aimed to engage fans of similar true crime programming such as True Detective and The Jinx. We did this by creating thought-provoking, shareable content that allowed fans to theorize about Naz's night and explore more nuances of the judicial system that he experienced first hand. The content sought to dangle the carrot, letting fans have enough to piece together themselves but never telling the full story.
In order to get people to the pilot and get them hooked, we created typographic critic praise quote cards and animated countdowns which resulted in 1.5 million people streaming the first episode on HBO NOW and HBO GO before the premiere.
Each week, we highlighted the breathtaking cinematography through gritty, visually compelling GIFs, character-based cinemagraphs, and video quote cards. To spark conversation, we emphasized quotes that played to the philosophical edge of the series as well as in real life facts about the judicial system. All content was showcased on The Night Of's Facebook Page and HBO's Twitter account.
When conversation surrounding the show was all about "who did it" (and you simply can't answer that question), our noir cinematic visuals spoke more than words. The results were outstanding:
