Walking with the Dead in New York City

As humans we have a strange desire to be scared out of our wits. We love horror films, haunted houses or scary stories. We love being frightened as long as we know it’s all fictional. But what happens when the expectant scare turns into an unannounced shock at a time and place you least expect it?

A series of recent live stunts – including this one for the latest Carrie movie and this for Devil’s Due – have seen a trend develop where marketing teams are taking advantage of modern technology and the evolution of experiential advertising to literally jump out in the face of the consumer with their promotions.

The campaigns have provoked mixed reactions due to the manner in which they are interacting with the public and, ultimately, generating content. The latest is a campaign for The Walking Dead that sees a flock of ‘zombies’ reaching out of a street grate in Lower Manhattan’s Union Square to promote the new series of the popular show, returning this Sunday 9 February.

Set up and executed by RELEVENT, the company’s founder and CEO Tony Berger, executive producer on the project, tells us more about the type of marketing which has been dubbed ‘prankvertising’, and how they set zombies loose in the Big Apple.

What was the brief from the client and who commissions something like this for a TV show – is it the producers?

The piece was commissioned by [television network] AMC. They asked us for a disruptive experiential stunt that would create a great piece of content that would drive viewership and help remind the world that The Walking Dead was coming back on air.

Where did the idea come from to put people under ground?

It came from the show itself. We cycled through a lot of the iconography from the last season and keyed in on the zombie pits that the Governor character uses in various despicable ways. We asked ourselves: What would it look like to encounter a zombie pit out in the city?

There have been a few of these scare tactic stunts executed, some with negative reaction. What are your thoughts on this and are they carried out in controlled environments?

How we execute is a bit of a trade secret, but we can say that the streets of New York can never be made a controlled environment!

In terms of the criticism around "prankvertising"; these kind of content stunts are not right for every product and brand, and some of the negative reaction is well-deserved. Our approach to creative experiential is to surface our clients' brands' essence and then bring that essence to life in ways that tell great stories.

We would never recommend a scare prank for something that didn't have fear or shock at its core. But, when you're working with a brand like The Walking Dead, you have to let zombies be zombies.

Where did you find the actors and how long were they down there shooting?

The zombies were played by professional and student actors from NYC. They were under the grate for about four hours altogether.

What do you think makes a good live experiential execution work?

Every execution is different, but the best work always starts with a deep understanding of both the brand's story and the consumer's story.

Great experiential marketing seamlessly and authentically blends the two together in the real world to create stories that people want to share. When done correctly it's incredibly powerful, both for the people who experience it on the ground and those who do so vicariously via video and other media. Red Bull has been doing this for a decade.

And why was Union Square a good location?

It's the crossroads of lower Manhattan, with a great mix of New Yorkers and visitors passing through all day long. With something like this stunt, we needed a constant flow of people who needed to be somewhere else in order to avoid this turning into zombie a petting zoo.