We couldn’t say it any better ourselves, so we’ll just let our NYC street team watchdog, Bucky Turco, comment on HBO’s street campaign for Entourage.
OMD’s desperately struggling trend marketing group, “Edge” is responsible for attempting to make HBO’s Entourage show cool and culturally relevant to throngs of NYC and LA’s hippest collection of savvy demo opinion formers, key influencers, tastemakers, etc.
At the heart of the Edge program was the initiative to promote the tagline “Let’s Hug It Out Bitch,” which HBO hopes to seed as the new expression for male reconciliation. You know, the whole “guys can’t say sorry thing.” It’s a term used by Ari, the brash loudmouth agent, and least cool character on the show.
The idea was to reach a cutting edge demographic with this “Let’s Hug It Out Bitch” tagline as the focus and a drive to the LHIOB.com website. That is when I happened on the first of the wild postings meant to wow the hipsters. Now let’s forget for a minute, and almost be thankful that these light blue posters are only going up in 4 poster clusters, which is good since they get lost awfully quick on any wall. That aside, since most wild postings stretch beyond 4 posters, what the hell kind of creative is this?
This tense standoff of an ostrich and a few dogs and a sheep is just not effective. What in the sam hell does an ostrich surrounded by plastic ANIMALS have to with male reconciliation and hugging it out? Ok, its cutesy, artsy and simple in a Martha Stewart kind of way, but does it really convey anything? And not that I’m into bestiality or anything, but doesn’t the Ostrich give off a kind of feminine vibe? It kind of takes hugging it out to mean more of a pre-orgy phrase then it does male reconciliation.
In a hell bent sense of irony, Lime PR’s more mass campaign for HBO’s Entourage which involving a series of events with free drinks and DJ’s and cool schwag (nicely designed t-shirt) trumps the more hipster oriented program in a heartbeat. For once it seems mainstream can be cooler then underground.
See the street posting here.
