The Stolen Eagle - Marketing

Marketing

HBO said its marketing plan for the series was, "its largest, most aggressive push for a new series". The channel broadcast the first three episodes seven days a week at various times during the day. Non-subscribers could preview the first two episodes during the first week of September 2005. HBO implemented an outdoor marketing campaign in major cities and produced movie-style trailers which preceded a number of films in cinemas. Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, Time, and GQ published full-size articles about the series. The History Channel broadcast five nights of documentaries featuring the Roman Empire, which were hosted by Stevenson, McKidd, and Varma, a collaboration which was the first of its kind between the two networks.

You're trying to show it in a way that a history lesson but a fictional story about two guys working for Caesar's army and how history unfolds around them. That it's not just people walking around in nice clean togas.

— Eric Kessler, HBO's president of sales and marketing, on advertising the series as a new perspective of the Roman Empire

David Baldwin, the executive vice president of program planning, said, "This is a huge series for us. We wanted to give it every opportunity to be seen by as many people as possible." Media outlets estimated that the entire marketing campaign cost HBO $10 million, the most the network had spent on marketing a series to that point.

Commentators viewed the success of Rome as crucial for the network, especially after the past mixed reception of Carnivàle and K-Street. In July 2005, James Hibberd of Television Week wrote that Rome was viewed "as the network's best shot for adding another literate, must-see drama to its schedule". Writing for the same publication, Tom Shales said that HBO "has made such a fuss over Rome, and the network itself has put such painful pressure on the show (and its producers) to make a hefty impact, that it'll be scorned like a leper if it fails to make a truly gigantic splash."