Dive Brief:

• For Women's Equality Day on Aug. 26, HBO created modernized versions of old-timey political cartoons that feature four female characters from its TV series depicted in battles against inequality, per details shared with Marketing Dive. The illustrations are by Paris-based artist Jeanne Detallante, and the campaign was developed with agency Wieden+Kennedy.
• The four custom illustrations feature Hannah from "Girls," Issa and Molly from "Insecure" and Maeve from "Westworld." To share the works, HBO partnered with two female-founded companies, the blog Man Repeller and co-working space The Wing. Starting Aug. 26, gallery-style events will be hosted by Man Repeller showcasing the pieces. At six The Wing locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago and New York, the art will also be available in the form of posters, notebooks, tote bags and stickers.
• This is the latest effort in HBO's #BecauseOfHer initiative, which previously included The Inspiration Room for Women's History Month and Mother's Day cards with images of the network's most famous female characters.

Dive Insight:

By visualizing popular characters in symbolic struggles, HBO aims to deepen its connections with female viewers around Women's Equality Day. The premium network could better target those audiences through its partnerships with Man Repeller, a popular tongue-in-cheek publisher, and The Wing, a co-working space focused on supporting entrepreneurial women that has more than 6,000 members.

HBO continues to seek out partnerships with women-led businesses for its #BecauseOfHer project and for promotional purposes. Last August, for instance, the network worked with female-first dating app Bumble to recreate the experience of a romantic night at home with "Stay Home to the Movies." The activation, set in a New York brownstone, featured five screening rooms showing films available on HBO and was personalized around the preferences of app users who had matched with each other.

HBO has ramped up its focus on experiential marketing to elevate its programming. These tactics, frequently deployed in high-traffic urban areas, are favored by age groups like millennials — audiences HBO needs to retain the interest of amid a proliferation of streaming competitors like Netflix and Hulu.

In January, HBO promoted season three of its series "High Maintenance," which is about a marijuana deliveryman, by offering free lattes containing CBD oil at pop-ups in Brooklyn and Venice Beach, California. Results from experiential firm Grandesign, which worked on the events, indicate about 12,000 in-person impressions, as well as about 100,000 social media impressions and 10,000 engagements on Twitter and Instagram.

These kinds of real-life experiential events are being adopted by many TV marketers, including Netflix for "Stranger Things," MTV for the "Jersey Shore" and FX for "Trust."