Deep Focus plays with polygamy

Firefox and Opera compatible

Client: HBO
Creative Agency: Deep Focus

Deep Focus was challenged to create an integrated online marketing campaign, complete with an interactive centerpiece, to reinvigorate fans for the return of HBO's Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated series, "Big Love." The second season of the hit drama series continues the story of the Henricksons, a polygamist family living in suburban Salt Lake City. During the first season, fans became familiar with (and very invested in) the life of the Henrickson clan, so to meet HBO's objective, Deep Focus used fan feedback to dictate the strategy and concept direction.

Over a third of the "Big Love" message board comments expressed a desire for "Big Love"-inspired games. Casual gaming, already popular with the show's core fan base of women, became the logical entry point into this audience's online behavior.   Responsively, HBO and Deep Focus developed Big Love Land, an interactive Flash board game inspired by the first season of the show.

Big Love Land combined the basic elements of traditional American board games with clever idiosyncrasies from the HBO series. The customized game board included "Big Love" landmarks such as Henrickson's Home Plus, Deb's Drive-in and the Henricksons' three households with their communal backyard. The polygamist environment is also brought to life with rich animations, such as a high school baseball game and easter eggs (check out the bride at the wedding chapel).
 
As users move through Big Love Land, they encounter different trials and tribulations of daily polygamist life. Users gain or lose "Big Love" Points depending on the event, and each stop on the board is accompanied by a video clip or photo from the series. Since the game was designed for fans and it supports an entertainment property, it was natural to feature the series content within the game, allowing players to become reacquainted with the Henricksons. Players were also challenged with trivia questions that could add to their "Big Love" Points total, which determined the players "wife-ranking" at the end of the game.

Big Love Land received a sincere housewarming from consumers and critics alike. Over 80,000 visitors have traveled to the game. More impressively, these visitors were engaged by the game and content. Twenty-four percent of users spent between 3-10 minutes on the site, and almost 19 percent have logged between 10-30 minutes of play. In addition to viral pass along through the "challenge a friend" function, users were driven to the game through custom creative in strategic placements such as portal gaming sections, HBO.com promotion and press coverage.    
-- Lindsey Iero, senior account executive, Deep Focus

Creative Showcase is meant to be a teaching tool and an inspiration for our readers. We comment only on creative that we really love. Our panelists discuss what makes it great, but if they feel there were missed opportunities that would have made it better, we invite them to mention those. And finally, we seek out a wide range of opinions that reflect the marketplace for the panel, in order to provide constructive, useable feedback for agencies, clients and others involved in these creative pieces.

Remember 'Life' the game? Well HBO has taken that concept online and set it on a virtual Salt Lake City gameboard, with mountains in the background and three wives in the foreground. This incarnation of Life uses videos, images and episode details from "Big Love" to truly test your show knowledge. It's clearly more of a fun promotional tool than a fully fleshed-out interactive game: you advance on every turn, there are no other players to contend with and there seems to be little correlation between the outcome of the roll of the die and how far the game advances you around the board.

Big Love Land makes great use of the interactivity and video capabilities of Flash; it's all very seamless. As online brand- and audience-building goes, I give it (and HBO) high marks, even though I was only able to score 1050 Big Love points, far short of the 10,700 set by the higher-scorer (an obvious show fanatic). But for someone that's seen it only once, I say I did fairly well.
-- Jason Scheidt, director of marketing, EyeWonder, Inc.

I hate to be a hater, but HBO's Candyland game spin-off for Big Love is a let down. This online knock off of the classic children's game seems to be aimed at the same audience as the original, and requires the same amount of skill.

Other than "rolling the dice" there doesn't seem to be anything to do. Not that Candyland asked for much participation either. Maybe this version is meant to mimic it as closely as possible, and in that sense, it succeeds. Also, I found the instructions on how to navigate the board to be a little confusing as well. "Use the corresponding letters of a compass to navigate around the game board." Ok, but guess what? That doesn't work. I had to mouse over the compass in the corner and click on the "N" or "W" to change my view. Not a big deal, but with such a simple game and simple objectives, it seems odd to be confused by the directions.

So, roll the dice. Watch your piece move around the board. Catch a clip of the video. Sorry, but no love from me for Big Love's "Big Love Land." 
-- Corey Kronengold, senior director of marketing and communications, Tremor Media