With its tales of vampires who walk among us, HBO's "True Blood" series blurs the lines of reality and fantasy. Now the Time Warner cable network's ad campaign for the series is trying to do the same. HBO enlisted eight major marketers, including Marc Ecko, to create vampire-themed campaigns in major newspapers and magazines, on billboards and across the Web.
The Mini car brand touts a blood-red convertible with the tagline "Feel the wind in your fangs" while Geico claims it can save vampires 15% on auto insurance. Monster.com offers "thousands of night shifts," and a new fragrance from Marc Ecko promises to "attract a human," accompanied by a titillating shot of a vamp about to snack on a model. These ads function on the premise that the audiences for these popular goods are vampires.
And, these ads may have created a new community of fhuman fans for the program. While the first episode of "True Blood" snared about 1.44 million viewers in its first telecast, the audience built steadily during the show's first season, according to Nielsen. By the first run of the season finale, the audience had increased to more than 2.44 million. On average, the first season of "True Blood" attracted about 2.02 million live and same-day viewers for first-run episodes, according to Nielsen.
August 6, 2009 
