We created a series of outdoor boards featuring people with jacks built into their heads. You could use your headphones (or ones provided by street teams) to plug in and hear each person’s secret. These ranged from an overweight man wearing a slimming girdle to a woman who secretly hates her baby and what it’s done to her life.In addition, when people plugged into the jack near the logo, they heard a trailer made up from some of the more dramatic clips of the upcoming season.With a traveling installation in Los Angeles and another installation in the New York City subways, there were over 70 secrets for listeners to discover.Listeners were also encouraged to share their secrets at HBO.com. There, users could also track submitted secrets by using a visualize that linked the various secrets by keyword (i.e. “affair” or “shameful”).

An estimated 100,000 pedestrians a day saw the billboard at the two LA locations. There were 1,400,000 monthly impressions in New York. The average person spent over five minutes interacting with these boards, and many listened to all of the secrets. Our efforts were written up in The New York Times and numerous online channels, helping to generate excitement for the new season. The premiere attracted 1.2 million viewers, and when HBO On Demand, replays and DVRs are included, each episode pulled in an average of 5 million viewers, spurring HBO to commit to a fourth season of the show.