For generations, TV and film video game adaptations have fallen short of fan expectations, creating a unique challenge for The Last of Us – but HBO had both the creative and strategy to break the curse, win over the fandom, and reach broad audiences.

HBO needed to craft a global social and influencer campaign designed to court the existing fanbase, spark interest among broad entertainment enthusiasts, and ultimately drive tune-in for The Last of Us.

Social creative for The Last of Us was filtered through the creative wrapper “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light,” promising the premium storytelling both fans of the game and HBO subscribers expect.

HBO developed a cohesive content suite—including character posters and A/V spotlights, behind-the-scenes featurettes and more—to appeal to both established video game fans and uninitiated broad audiences, prominently featuring the story’s heroes, Joel and Ellie and highlighting their growing bond, illustrating the dichotomy of love through them.

Highlighting visual motifs of light and dark, their personal stories, and the bonds the heroes develop, HBO created multisensory campaign creative that invoked universal themes of human nature, survival and hope.

HBO sought to create a global, event-level campaign – its biggest of 2023 – that established and cemented The Last of Us as a must-see franchise and television’s next cultural phenomenon.

Informed by research on the fandom and built in partnership with PlayStation and Naughty Dog to establish credibility with fans of the IP, the campaign was designed to turn superfans of the game into evangelists, fueling a series-specific fandom and driving broad appeal throughout the season.

By leveraging the HBO/Max brands’ global social, digital, and streaming ecosystem alongside series, partner, and talent social accounts, each beat was buoyed by a 175M-follower footprint, driving awareness, viewership, and engagement.

HBO’s global campaign spanned 200+ territories and leveraged owned, earned, paid, traditional, digital, social, experiential, and influencer tactics, with each phase, beat, and piece of content designed to immerse new and existing fans deeper into The Last of Us.

Beginning with a first look image on the existing fan holiday TLOU Day 2021, HBO released teaser content to engage the core fandom. To prime the masses in 2022, a video of the trademark HBO static infused with Clicker sounds teased the record-breaking A/V teaser and TLOU social handles launch were coming.

Following TLOU Day 2022, the followers came in droves. An “always on” engagement approach, coupled with asset reveals, behind-the-scenes A/V, stills providing new looks at the series and weekly fan art spotlights, spoke to both audience subsets, establishing trust and creating series evangelists. Carhartt kits were also sent to early, vocal users.

HBO’s global social strategy resulted in record-breaking engagement across HBO’s social platforms, from pre-premiere asset releases through finale:

The teaser garnered 57 million organic views in 72 hours, making it the most watched AV promo in HBO and HBO Max history, while the trailer reached nearly 50 million views in 72 hours, far outperforming other HBO dramas.

Week after week, The Last of Us dominated social, maintaining its place as the No. 1 most-social drama series across all TV in-season, and driving 6.7 million U.S. interactions, 357 billion global impressions, and 7.8 million global social posts.

The consistent social engagement throughout the season helped solidify The Last of Us as a series ingrained in the zeitgeist and a must-watch for global audiences.