Were you worried about alienating the audience or damaging the brand by taking this risk? [Seasons seven and eight aren’t officially picked up, but Ryan has spoken about them.]
I don’t feel like we thought we would damage the brand. I think the power of the program can precede a marketing campaign. A marketing campaign, by being at the point of entry, we are the privileged babysitter to the primary relationship with the program itself and the viewers. What we try to do is open the door and let people know that there’s something of value to experience. So I don’t think we worried about damaging the brand.
What we did worry about is that we didn’t want to do anything that didn’t bring the viewers a thrill, happiness, a twist and a turn that was a positive and thrilling experience; versus a frustrating experience. And I don’t meant to say that there weren’t viewers out there who were frustrated, I’m sure there were, but overall, there’s a thrill to the hunt and that’s what we were celebrating. AHS was coming whether we told you or not, so there wasn’t a risk of the marketing campaign saying, “Aha!” And that there wasn’t even a show at the end of the tunnel. After all the breadcrumbs, you are definitely going to get the sandwich. There’s no bait and switch here. It was about celebrating the building and worshiping the anticipation.
Source and more: THR
Stay tuned as we await the official AHS Season 7 renewal announcement…
Leave a Reply