Fishburn Hedges

20.01.2011

Speaking to a group of BBDO group creative types in London today, David Lubars, Executive Creative Director and Chairman of BBDO New York, talked about how the agency’s work for the HBO Cube demonstrated where PR and advertising are meeting and mingling. This shows more evidence of the need for professional communicators to understand better the range of channels that audiences follow.

HBO’s Cube installation and interactive site, launched in 2009, was centred on a four-sided screen that presented a multi-dimensional storytelling experience both online at HBOimagine.com and in select installations in New York City, Washington DC and Philadelphia.

The HBO Cube offered four different perspectives on the same scene, simultaneously. Two short films, Heist and Affair, were told from four distinct points of view, and viewers had to watch all four to find out what was really going on. The cubes were connected by an additional 41 pieces of content that included both short- and long-form video, news stories, images, and audio files.

Here is a link to a more detailed explanation of the idea and the films themselves.

Television, and with it traditional TV advertising, are enjoying something of a renaissance in the US at the moment, but this comingling of advertising and PR is proof of an exciting, new, interactive arena for both industries.

Posted by Paul Farrow