HBO’s True Blood Wins the Shorty Industry Award for Best Use of Twitter in a Marketing Campaign
HBO’s True Blood (@TrueBloodHBO) Season 3 Premiere was awarded the Shorty Industry Award for Best Use of Twitter in a Marketing Campaign at the 3rd Annual Shorty Awards on Monday, March 28, 2011 in New York City.
Overview: True Blood is an HBO drama series about vampires created by Alan Ball. For the Season 3 premiere in June, 2010, the show’s marketing team launched a digital media campaign centered on “The True Blood Ultimate Fan Experience.” A midnight screening event was held simultaneously in 50 movie theaters nationwide. The show’s Twitter account shared clues for which city would get tickets next. Fans got a free screening of the Season 2 finale, an exclusive Season 3 sneak peak, and a live simulcast Q&A with Ball and the cast. One of the only ways to get a ticket was through a Facebook application where fans “played” for local tickets overnight from 6:13 p.m. to 6:13 a.m., playing on the 6/13 premiere date. Fifty “Ultimate Truebie Sheriffs,” who are fan leaders to represent each city, were chosen through Twitter after answering the tweet, “Why should you be Sheriff in your city? Tell us in 140 characters or less.” The show’s blog, Bloodcopy.com, became a Twitter microsite where users could adjust the feed to display show‐ related Twitter lists. On finale night, True Blood invited two actors active on Twitter, Kristin Bauer Van Straten and Joe Manganiello, to host a live Twitter chat at Bloodcopy.com. On‐air promotion drove fans to the microsite to chat live with their favorite characters. True Blood won a Shorty Award for #entertainment last year.
Impact: The Season 3 premiere of True Blood pulled in more than 5 million viewers, up 1.3 million viewers from the Season 2 premiere. It also beat FOX and NBC in its time slot. A replay of the Sunday night premiere later in the night had an additional 1 million viewers.
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