HBO, Deep Focus Solicit Spoken Word for “The Wire”
Deep Focus is working in accordance with music site Blastro.com, which is hosting all the submitted content. Schafer believes Blastro’s cred makes the partnership invaluable. “We wanted to find out where this audience was online, and find an appropriate partner who would not only reach this community, but speak to this community. Blastro tends to have a lot of content that’s hip-hop related, thoughtful hip-hop. There were already forums on there where people were actively involved in the spoken word community. So we just wanted to blow that content up.”
To blow it up and add that extra element of authenticity, Deep Focus elicited the help of Wire cast member Sonja Sohn, who plays Detective Shakima “Kima” Greggs on the show. Sohn, who gives the video introduction on the contest homepage, is an accomplished slam poet who made a name for herself in the film Slam. “She was already part of the spoken word community, and we actually went out and shot some educationally-themed spoken word performances throughout the country,” Schafer adds. “That basically provided the kickstart for submissions, for people to get themselves seen, and more importantly, get themselves heard. That’s where we found our success.”
For Schafer & Co., though, success isn’t always measured in numbers, especially with this type of campaign. “One of the things that we say is when you’re doing any kind of promotion that’s oriented around consumers submitting their own content, it’s not really about the quantity of submissions, it’s really about the quality.”
And with quality content for a quality show, Schafer hopes that The Wire finally can finally reap the same commercial success as its fellow HBO series. “What we’re hoping is to translate into commercial success is to show just how passionately people feel about The Wire, and how passionate people feel about the themes that are central to the series,” Schafer concludes. “We want to show the [mainstream] how people gravitate towards this series because of its cultural resonance. That’s what really the solicitation was for. It wasn’t to see just how many entries we could get, we wanted to get really high-quality entries, and use the best entries to showcase.”
But time is limited, as the last day to submit entries for this particular battle is Monday, September 25th.
Want to speak your mind? Visit blastro.com/spokenwordbattle
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