Netflix Originals don't play by traditional genre rules. So when it came time to launch The Haunting of Hill House, their new horror original series, they needed a campaign that clearly communicated that they were here to scare... but in a totally different way from everything else telling terrifying stories.

Four words: be creepy, not scary. The horror at the heart of The Haunting of Hill House isn't rooted in cheap gore or jump scares - it comes from the characters of the Crain family and how traumatic experiences from the past haunt them in the present. The goal of our social campaign was to evoke this same sentiment in every corner of the internet where we brought the show.

Our strategy revolved around our audience’s expectations. Since horror is traditionally promoted in terms of its most startling, evocative moments, we built around story to make Hill House stand out from the pack before it came out. And since different channels attract different kind of horror fans, we created bespoke content series for multiple channels laddering back to the image of the dense narrative experience we wanted fans to expect going into the show.

Once the show was out, our strategy shifted - where before we wanted to put the show's density on display, once it was out we wanted to make sure people appreciated how pleasurable Hill House was to watch.

At the campaign’s outset, traditional social content leaned on assets taken from the show that established the two timelines and outlined key character beats. These pieces went out from both the show’s channels and from talent.

For more niche audiences, we wrote original short stories based on unfilmed elements taken from the show’s bible, then shared them on the popular subreddit NoSleep, a community for original horror writing. Despite NoSleep’s deserved reputation for strict moderation, our stories earned praise from the hardcore horror fans who make up the community - especially when they figured out Netflix was behind the stories just before the show’s premiere.

After launch, our approach shifted to amplifying character details, evoking trends among viewers like "scrying" (aka "screaming and crying simultaneously") through show content, and driving repeat viewing by highlighting hidden easter eggs missed during an initial viewing.

As of December 2018, The Haunting of Hill House became the third most searched TV series in the United States via Google Trends, and amassed over 575K followers, 1.6M engagements, 10.5 million video views, and 127M impressions and counting across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit. Our Reddit social campaign resulted in a huge wave of positive engagement across multiple subreddit communities, and over 25K followers - a rare achievement.