Sci Fi hits the road to push Tin Man

The Sci Fi Channel is to launch its biggest campaign of the year to promote Tin Man, the Wizard of Oz-inspired series that has outgunned shows such as Battlestar Galactica in the US. The show, which stars Alan Cumming and delivered Sci-Fi its biggest ever audience in the US, launches in the UK on May 11.

Sci Fi UK, which is launching a national campaign from this weekend, is making the first hour of the three-part mini series available to watch online from Sunday, May 4. The campaign, which uses the famous image of the yellow brick road, includes a nationwide poster campaign, ads on the London Underground and national press ads targeting Sunday newspapers.



"It is a beautiful, ambitious and bold re-imagining of an all time classic," said Maya Bhose, the marketing director at Sci Fi Channel. "We wanted to embrace comparisons with the Wizard of Oz which is why we chose such an iconic image to lead the campaign."

Marketing activity also includes an innovative, surreal virtual "fly through" of the land of Oz that will be accessible at www.scifi.co.uk/tinman from today. The ad campaign has been created by agency Karmarama with media planning and buying by Rocket-PHD.

The £10m fantasy production has proved to be Sci-Fi US's biggest ever ratings winner with 6.3 million viewers. This is more than the audience for shows such as Battlestar Galactica and Dune and Steven Spielberg's Taken, which all debuted on Sci-Fi in the US.

Tin Man will run on the Sci Fi Channel at 8pm on May 11, 18 and 25.