Veteran transmedia storytellers Campfire previously designed campaigns for programs such as Game of Thrones and Bag of Bones. In those campaigns, as in the current one for Hunted, Campfire relies on a multi-pronged strategy to spread word of mouth about the program and increase brand awareness of the channel on which the program airs. As such, the campaigns combine an interactive web-based component, a physical object sent to opinion leaders, and, in the case of Game of Thrones and Hunted, targeted, local events. All elements of the campaign synch to provide potential viewers with an immersive experience of the program’s characters and storyworld.

The specific elements that comprise the Hunted campaign have been analyzed by multiple media outlets such as ARG Net, Huffington Post, and by Myles McNutt, so I will highlight only a few relevant features. The online component at ByzantiumTests.com consists of personality tests that supposedly decide if the participant is fit to work for Byzantium Security. As one might expect, it doesn’t matter how one responds to these tests—in the end, all participants are deemed to be part of the 1% that qualifies for employment at Byzantium (nevertheless, it is worth playing through all tests to get to the very last, the baffling outcome of which leads one to ask “but how did they do that?”). I found it interesting that the online component asks viewers to join Byzantium when the company is marked as an antagonist in the series itself, but as I previously explained regarding The Hunger Games, this strategy invites viewers into the diegesis while simultaneously not revealing too much in advance to the program’s premiere.

The physical component of the Hunted campaign takes the form of a wooden puzzle that has a secret compartment for a password-protected flash drive. After solving the fragmented anagram burned into the wood, one has access to exclusive materials. Campfire’s goal of sending out the puzzles to the lucky few—or shall we say, the lucky 1% of television viewers privileged enough to receive mail from Campfire—is also to spread the word about Hunted (full disclosure: I received one of those puzzles, too, and am presumably doing my part by writing this post). After all, as Campfire’s Creative Director Steve Coulson told me, an important goal of this transmedia campaign is to generate word-of-mouth buzz that connects a quality drama like Hunted with Cinemax. The dual goal of the Hunted transmedia campaign is thus not only to recruit new viewers for Cinemax, but also the elevate viewers’ opinion of Cinemax’s brand (Campfire created a campaign with similar goals for A&E and its Stephen King mini-series Bag of Bones).

Photo Credit: Armando Gallardo

So far, all of this is fairly standard in the world of transmedia storytelling. However, the last component of the Hunted campaign stands out. As part of a localized event, posters promoting Byzantium Security appeared in the area around Wall Street in time for the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. In contrast to the online component, which is easily identified as promotional material for Hunted because of its copyright disclaimer, the ads did not have any overt link to the program. Indeed, many people mistook the posters for real ads advertising security for the 1%.

The above photo circulated widely on Twitter and blogs following the OWS anniversary. The revelation that the Byzantium ads were “just” for a TV program didn’t necessarily improve opinions about the ad (see, for example, the reactions on OWS’s Facebook page). One could say that this reaction was a win for Campfire nevertheless since Hunted and Cinemax became part of a passionate conversation. However, seeing the ads either as marketing triumph or terrible co-option of activist language is too simple, especially because the program itself raises the question of what it means to work for a company that protects the 1%.  For me, ambivalence might be a better term for describing this mash-up of activist language and television promotion. While the ads might not promote a security firm for the 1%, they promote a program that targets those who can and will spend the additional monthly fee for Cinemax; a group we might imagine as the “1%” of television viewers. While the actual number of subscribers is larger than one percent, the discourse of quality television depicts viewers of premium cable drama as the elite among TV viewers (as suggested by Michael Z. Newman and Elena Levine in Legitimating Television).

There is also the question of commercial television’s role in contributing to a conversation about the issues addressed by OWS, like global finance. Is television depoliticized, as Alternet’s Sarah Jaffe observes, or is TV another venue in which this conversation happens? The first episode suggests that Hunted will follow the usual approach of commercial television and present the conflicts surrounding Byzantium in a personalized way, namely as a conflict between main character Sam Hunter and Byzantium, her employers, rather than offering a systemic critique of Byzantium as cog in the machine of global finance. Despite this personalization, it seems too easy to divorce a program like Hunted from the larger discourse surrounding OWS. Perhaps the ultimate achievement of the Byzantium ads is that it forces us to look more closely at how both the commercialized rhetoric of transmedia and the activist rhetoric of OWS engage in a conversation about the 1%.

The “Occupy” movement that has taken hold in cities and towns across the United States was first ignored, then mistreated by some, revered by others, and, strangely, mocked by still others.  There has been some thoughtful reporting of the movement in corporate media, and I do not want to lump all coverage together. But when I think about how anti-war protesters were marginalized by cable news in 2003 and how the Tea Party protests were glamorized in 2009, I’m quite intrigued by the TV journey this movement has taken.  Three moments in the recent coverage stand out to me:

Fox News vs. Jesse LaGreca: In this interview (which actually did not air), a Fox News reporter listens to LaGreca’s eloquent defense of Occupy Wall Street, which includes a spirited critique of the news coverage.  The Fox News reporter then challenges La Greca and says, “…you wouldn’t be able to get your message out there without us.”  Sadly, LaGreca did not correct his interviewer.  How did Occupy Wall Street launch and organize, if not via social media?  TV news was late to the party but still wants to take credit for throwing it.

MSNBC takes to the streets: We all know that MSNBC has executed a few brand shifts over the years and has emerged from a confused adolescence into a focused adulthood.  The brand it has settled on is “to-the-left-of-CNN,” and some of its personalities reflect this more than others.  During the eight hours I’m in my office each weekday, I keep the TV on MSNBC, partly because I have no remote control for that TV.  So, when I see Dylan Ratigan participating in a secular call-and-response with NYC protesters, I scrunch my face a bit and wonder whether this cheerleading is productive.  I’m no believer in journalistic objectivity, but I’m also suspicious of news folks who insert themselves into the story.  With Glenn Beck it was demagoguery, but with Ratigan it feels like shameless self-promotion.  Which, in light of MSNBC’s recent promotional spots, fits in quite well with the network.

The Daily Show throws rotten fruit at the stage: First, I wish people would stop looking to Jon Stewart to be the voice of the young(ish) Left.  He isn’t truly happy with a rally unless he’s staging it on the National Mall and taking a firm stand against taking a firm stand.  And, at times, TDS goes out of its way to sever its ties with liberal causes.  Case in point: Samantha Bee framing a Occupy Wall St. segment in terms of potty breaks and bad hygiene.  Yes, we get it.  You can be as grouchy toward these protesters as you can be toward the Tea Partiers.  But without Bee’s charm, this is a Fox News story.

Aside from these moments, we see a lot of the same old material: violence-driven stories that point out the NYPD’s excessive force or dismissive stories that paint the protesters as a nuisance.  As I write, @Occupy_Boston is tweeting for reinforcements as Boston PD is threatening to remove the protesters from their campsite.  Impending police action was the main thrust of the local Boston news coverage of today’s largely student-led march.  These stories are all to be expected.  And while at one level I question the usefulness of much of this coverage, I know full well that I searched the sky fruitlessly for a news helicopter covering the Occupy Boston march I attended on October 8.  There was no news helicopter.  There was no aerial shot to capture the crowd of marchers descending on Newbury Street and befuddled Brooks Brothers shoppers.  There were many tweets and cell phone videos that could only fit a handful of protesters into the screen.  Even though television news often misses the figurative big picture, it’s the only outlet with the means to give us the symbolic value of the literal big picture.