Key Art

Enlisted by CNN Creative Marketing to collaborate in promoting seasons three and four of the HLN Original Series “Vengeance,” 2C Creative (“2C”) gave the campaign a cinematic feel, opting to approach the launch promos more like main titles in style and pacing and delivering elements that heighten a sense of danger through contrasts. Watch campaign highlights HERE. “Vengeance” is an HLN Original Series about revenge, betrayal and murder. Each season follows 10 true-life mysteries through all of the twists and turns that lead to arrests, verdicts and justice. “Vengeance – Killer Coworkers” premiered Sunday, January 5, and the campaign will evolve for season four – “Vengeance – Killer Families” this summer. With campaign elements that include launch spots, key art, the HLN Original Series open, episodics and graphic toolkits, 2C’s concept takes the familiar scenes and objects from our work and home lives and injects them with a True Crime twist. The scenarios are simple – a desk, a break room, a kitchen, a living room – but each has been tainted with murder so it’s both familiar and shocking, normal and unsettling. To create these completely custom scenarios, 2C used a combination of 3D elements and compositing. Heavy shadows and shifting darkness isolate the focus on the scene of the crime while a desaturated palette helps emphasize the blood stains in each location, embodying the element of murder. The story is told with titles, as authentic audio from the show provides the pacing.

There’s what you’ve heard… and there’s how it really happened, teases the newest promo for “How It Really Happened,” an HLN Original primetime series debuting its sixth season on March 14. Longtime creative partner 2C 2.0 was enlisted by CNN Creative Marketing to deliver the extensive on-air marketing campaign. A true collaborative effort, the teams were in sync for every step of the process, with Bill Platt leading the creative on CNN’s end. In approaching the campaign, 2C focused on what sets “How It Really Happened” apart from other similar docuseries, using the editorial language and visual elements to demonstrate this quite literally. The agency created a graphic device that starts with floating headlines and audio clips of “what you've heard” in the news before diving deeper into teasing what viewers actually haven't heard in the second half of the spot. “This series is special in the way it gets beyond the headlines most people see to reveal that there’s so much more behind every story. By focusing on this differentiator, both editorially and visually, we were able give the new season a distinctive feel while getting to the heart of the show’s appeal to viewers,” said 2C Creative Director Cheryl King. “I really enjoyed getting to help see it through from ideation to completion.” 2C, which had actually teamed with CNN to promote two prior seasons of “How It Really Happened,” delivered a Season 6 on-air marketing campaign consisting of a launch promo and six episodic spots (all with cutdowns), as well as a topical graphics package. Hosted by critically acclaimed actor Hill Harper, the HLN Original primetime series “How It Really Happened” delves deeply into some of the most notorious crimes, mysteries, trials and celebrity tragedies of our time.