It’s a full house at HBO this spring, and the company is taking a Smart approach to its marketing.
With the third season of White Lotus recently coming to an end, and The Last of Us Season 2 taking its slot for Sunday night programming, HBO is banking on a lot of its popular drama franchises to generate attention in the months ahead—but the network doesn’t want you to forget about its half-hour comedies either.
Hacks, the Emmy-winning series starring Jean Smart as veteran comedian Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder as emerging comedy writer Ava Daniels, premiered its fourth season between the two series. And to get the word out, HBO wanted to lean into an extensive marketing campaign, including several out-of-home (OOH) stunts, digital executions, and brand partnerships all centering on the comedic and glamorous world of Smart’s Deborah Vance.
Dana Flax, vp of originals marketing at HBO and Max, noted that this year’s goal was to build on recent momentum, especially in the wake of the show’s win for Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys last year.
“It’s relatively rare for us to see a show, particularly a comedy, entering its fourth season as a real audience growth opportunity,” Flax told ADWEEK. “That’s usually when we have our audience established, but given the way the industry embraced the show, we saw a real opportunity to bring some new audiences.”
Showing that growth opportunity, HBO noted the trailer for the fourth season of Hacks, which debuted on March 11, surpassed trailer viewership for Season 1 through Season 3 by 85%.
Placing Deborah Vance’s presence everywhere
In the show, Smart portrays Vance as a force to be reckoned with, who absolutely loves the attention and the glitzy lifestyle that comes along with it. To lean into the Season 4 storyline in Las Vegas, Flax said she wanted to approach it with a multi-platform and in-world strategy, which featured some meta and satirical elements, positioning the character of Deborah Vance as a real-life person.
For the OOH portion of the campaign, HBO projected an image of Vance on a digital resort billboard, one of the biggest LED screens in Las Vegas, which was a nod to the character’s longstanding residency within the show. Crescent moon billboards of Deborah Vance with Ava Daniels hanging off the side were also displayed in Los Angeles and New York.