Random Acts of Flyness may not seem like obvious material for a pop-up experience, but that’s exactly what’s happening over the next two nights as the HBO show takes over a space in New York City.
The recently debuted six-episode late night show created by artist, musician and film director Terence Nance features a variety of interconnected stream-of-consciousness vignettes to showcase some of the major issues facing the black community today.
Aspects of the show, including set recreations and some of its fictional counter-racism products, are featured at the pop-up experience alongside artistic installations. These include a “Black Women Won’t Save Us All” room—where attendees are encouraged to write the names of influential black women on its walls—an audio experience where users can listen to the everyday sounds of black culture, and a meditation room located behind the “Everybody Dies!” game show set.
Lucinda Martinez, senior vice president of multicultural and international marketing at HBO, told AList that, “When developing our promotional efforts for this series, we recognized that Terence’s style of storytelling is unique and thought-provoking and required a non-traditional approach in translating it to our audiences. Watching his show felt like an experience, so why not bring that very experience to life and have potential viewers experience it for themselves?”
Martinez added that the pop-up was one in a myriad of ways HBO reaches its audiences create awareness for its show. Random Acts of Flyness was shown at a variety of festival screenings and it even has a related mobile game called Kekubian Assassin, where a female black character must fight off racist and sexist threats.
“We’re targeting a multicultural millennial audience that feels this series resonates with them,” Martinez explained, stating that this audience appreciates authentic experiences that can be shared with others via social media. The pop-up experience, which will only be shown in New York, is being promoted through the press, social media influencers, tastemaker networks and the artist community.
But even though Random Acts of Flyness deals with sensitive political and cultural topics, HBO regards both the show and the experiences as celebrations of black culture, and they’re not meant to be at the expense of any other culture or point of view. Martinez said that it is this kind of unique storytelling, which covers a variety of topics, that defines the HBO brand.
At the same time, Martinez said that working with sensitive issues requires HBO to “be more thoughtful and intentional” with its targeting and efforts.
“We don’t see these as challenges necessarily, but rather as opportunities to develop new audiences and to present new forms of storytelling, new artists and new voices to our existing audiences,” she said. “As marketers, it is always exciting for us to innovate and explore innovative ways to promote our content.”