Truly, Madly, Deadly_ The Unofficial True Blood Companion - Becca Wilcott [38]
It was an interesting dilemma that hbo surely never planned for. In his essay, Laycock states his case clearly, concluding, “This position invokes a worldview in which reality consists only of what can be empirically proven to exist, and that anyone who believes otherwise is foolish or somehow deserves to be deceived.”
Heading into season 2, hbo took their campaign straight to the mainstream, this time steering away from mystery and straight toward full assimilation of vampires living openly in society. First, they released a dual-image teaser poster, a Rubin’s vase–like blood splatter that could also be seen as one figure biting another’s neck, a beautifully simple yet evocative treatment. HBO also released a minute-long promotional video that featured the incomparable Bob Dylan’s “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’,” first showing on Entertainment Tonight. They launched an online interactive game for U.S. residents — “Escape the Every Day” — which had a pot of $10,000 to be used toward hbo services and more. Players navigated through scenes such as Merlotte’s, Bill’s house, or the graveyard, their goal to unlock and collect objects, earning points and additional chances to enter the sweepstakes. There were also chances to win instant True Blood–related prizes such as dvds, T-shirts, and mugs, all no doubt by fans just chomping at the bit for season 2 to start.
They took the theme of mainstreaming even further by running a series of Digital Kitchen ads featuring real advertisers pitching product to vampires: Ecko (“Attract a Human”); Geico (“The money you could save if you were immortal”); Gillette (“Dead Sexy”); Monster.com (“When you sleep in a coffin, it’s easy to think outside the box”); Harley Davidson (“Outrun the Sun”); and BMW’s Mini Cooper (“Feel the Wind in Your Fangs”), which ran a combined campaign of national print, online, and out-of-home outlets. Digital ads also ran on Yahoo, cnn, aol, hbo’s True Blood home page, and across the show’s microsites.
The counterpart to the Fellowship of the Sun was launched with the online home of the American Vampire League (www.americanvampireleague.com), which exists to promote vampire rights. Designed to look and operate like a not-for-profit organization, it featured news items, an “Intolerance Watch,” psas on the addictive dangers of V (vampire blood), vampire-friendly brands, and a downloadable rally kit.
The BloodCopy wiki was created along with Twitter accounts for the Fellowship of the Sun, the American Vampire League, BloodCopy, and Facebook fan pages for each. The True Blood Facebook fan page alone has over 1.23 million fans to date.
In September 2009, hbo launched a gothic-themed True Blood jewelry line with Udi Behr, chief designer for Love Peace and Hope, and filed a trademark registration for a possible future electronic game based on the series. And the viewer was also finally allowed their own taste of TruBlood in September 2009. Bottled to look the same as it does in the series, the beverage itself is a blood orange carbonated drink, manufactured by Omni Consumer Products, a company that specializes in creating products as distinct as their fictional branding.
The Pop Culture Politics of True Blood
From Chaos to Repair and Mainstreaming Vampires as an LGBT Metaphor
Jason Stackhouse: A lot of Americans don’t think you people deserve special rights.
Bill Compton: They’re the same rights you have.
Jason Stackhouse: No, I’m just saying there’s a reason things are the way they are.
Bill Compton: Yeah. It’s called injustice.
“The vampire is a subversive creature in every way, and I think this accounts