I love NBC’s Hannibal. And like most shows I’ve loved in the past 15 years, it is stashed at the ass end of a network schedule to wither and die, and I, along with rest of the fanbase, spend as much time worrying about the ratings as we do the lives of the characters.
But how do you effectively advertise a show like Hannibal? Conventional wisdom says it’s damn near impossible; the reason the show is great can’t be chopped down into :30 second spots, or even a two minute trailer. Even the best attempts will be a clumsy misrepresentation. And if you manage to get it right, Hannibal is such a bleak, dark-humored thing that potential audience members might miss the appeal of following the show.
But in South Korea? They don’t give a fuck about conventional wisdom. And as such, they run the best advertisements for this show I’ve ever seen.
Conventional wisdom says you just can’t do that here in America. Maybe that’s true. Or maybe NBC just takes that… thing up there, and doesn’t even bother to translate it. Just tack it to the ass end of an episode of Community and let it run in all it’s hyperventilating glittered-out glory. So what if it’s not really all that representational of the show’s tone? Yeah, it’s pretty much a Tumblr page brought to garishly adorable life; if it gets a couple extra asses in front of the couch at 10pm on Friday, wouldn’t that be worth it?
The show’s tagline is “Embrace the madness” after all.
I only started watching Hannibal shortly after Season 2 began.
Why? Because I didn’t know it even existed until then!
I watch a good amount of TV, but almost no network programs.
I watch BBC America, USA, TNT, History, H2, etc.
If I hadn’t been searching through my “on demand” menu at that precise time when they advertised catching up on Hannibal Season 1, I still might not know about it.
In the last month and a half I purchased all of season 1 on demand and even purchased the bluray for the extras.
I have watched every season 2 episode live or DVR’d when I couldn’t watch live.
I read both Red Dragon and Silence of the lambs before the films were made.
I own all of the films (Except Hannibal Rising).
I am an “easy sell” for this show, yet I almost wasn’t even aware of it.
I haven’t seen any other ads since then that would have told me about the show.
The “Fannibals” put in more effort to promote this show than NBC does.
Here is a list of things NBC needs to do to get this show the audience it deserves.
1. If this is the show that you want to draw viewers back to your network from cable then maybe you should advertise to the viewers that are watching cable? Why don’t they run ads on ID (Investigation Discovery)? Hover round can afford the spots and every other show is about a serial killer, those just might be people who would watch your show?
2. Will Graham! Hearing that the show was about the Will Graham character MADE me give it a chance. Anyone who has read the novels knows that Will Graham is Thomas Harris’s best character.
3. Ignore the nielsen ratings (even though, I know that is what advertisers use to buy ads). The way they calculate ratings if flawed and favors middle of the road dramas with higher ratings and gives unique cutting edge shows lower ratings. Please do not cancel the show or give up on it based on these. They will give someone that still watches TV without cable or satellite tv a nielsen box and count what they watch as a 100,000 people. 90% of the people I know, ages 18-49 who don’t have cable or satellite watch everything on their computer through Netflix and other venues, but they are still being counted as watching that same show that someone who doesn’t even care enough about the quality of what they are watching to upgrade to cable or satellite.
4. Make an Emmy push. Critics love this show! Hannibal should walk away with at least 10 Emmies this year.