Mobile Marketing

Sponsor KitchenAid donated all the appliances for the kitchen inside the truck.

To promote the DVD release of Boardwalk Empire's first season, HBO devised a multifaceted promotion that included vintage vehicles stationed in busy areas, including New York's Union Square (pictured).

The Prohibition-era vehicles, which were operated by a crew of staffers dressed in costumes inspired by the show, served as mobile shops, selling the DVDs to passersby.

The mobile marketing effort also hit Chicago, stopping a various locations in the city's Loop neighborhood.

In Los Angeles, HBO stationed the vehicles, complete with liquor crate props, outside the Kodak Theater at Hollywood and Highland.

To anchor the marketing effort, HBO turned its shop in Midtown New York into a speakeasy-style spot, boarding up the windows and adding a sliding eye window to the door. In addition to handing out information flyers, staffers grab the attention of passersby by yelling, "Feds!" and mimicking a police raid.

To give the modern interior of HBO's store a more vintage look, Zoom Media installed temporary walls and flooring, furnished the space with a custom fabricated wooden bar with stools, and scattered an array of props. A curtain on one side separates the promotion from the areas dedicated to HBO's other shows.

Items from Boardwalk Empire's props department, including fake newspapers, decorate the shop's wall niches.

Rather than use random photographs from the 1920s, HBO took shots from Boardwalk Empire and had them treated and framed to look vintage.

As the filming for the current season had already wrapped, the network was only able to borrow items from Boardwalk Empire's props department, so larger pieces like the wooden bar and backdrop were designed and built specifically for the marketing promotion. HBO will be able to keep some of the assembled structures, which could eventually be used by the series.

DVD sets for sale are displayed on high-top tables placed beside the bar.

Even though HBO can't serve alcohol in the speakeasy, the bartenders still playfully offer visitors a tipple.

Instead of offering a cocktail menu, the bartenders show off the selection of extras available on the DVD.

Guests could drop a disc down a large board modeled after the Plinko game on The Price Is Right. Their prize was determined by which slot the disc landed in at the bottom of the board.