National Geographic's Brand Campaign Targets Entire Planet

The National Geographic Channel has announced plans for a new global brand campaign, and has already begun rolling out promotional ads for “Live Curious” in conjunction with the second annual Expedition Week.

The spots, intended to evoke viewers' emotion, juxtapose images of human activity with declarative sentences such as “If you are, you breathe” and “If you breathe, you talk,” sounding much like what the psycho killer of Scream would whisper into a sorority girl's ear. But Nat Geo hopes to spark curiosity, which led to the promo's aptly-named title.

The scenes were shot in 40 locations around the globe. The ads will spread just as far and wide: “Live Curious” spots started in the US, India and the Netherlands, but will air in Italy and Germany by December. Over the following three months, the initiative will be seen in all 166 countries serviced by the network.

“What we are looking to do is to make a connection between that natural curiosity that informs the National Geographic brand and our programming,” Hynninen said. “The spots define something that’s true about NGC in a way that feels uniquely representational.”

Nat Geo is also publicizing Great Migrations, an upcoming seven-hour miniseries that will be the most ambitious global undertaking in the Society’s 120-year history. The show is expected to reach some 315 million homes. Now in production, the program premieres in fall 2010.

Better start cataloging your maps and registering for a new passport. A whole lot of geography learning is going down, people. Whether we like it or not, National Geographic is on the move.