Vampire-related sites are drawing audiences on the Web. In June 2009, the official Twilight movie site was the top online vampire-related destination, garnering 553,000 unique visitors who spent an average of two minutes and 45 seconds on the site during the month (the New Moon trailer is a minute and 47 seconds long). Vampire Wars on Facebook and Vampire Wars on Myspace.com ranked No. 2 and No. 3, with 386,000 and 272,000 unique visitors, respectively.

Interestingly, unique visitors to Twilight over-indexed among people between the ages of 25 and 34, despite originally sold as a book series for young adults. Unique visitors 25-34 were nearly twice as likely as the average Web user to visit the site in June. Women are also 44 percent more likely than the average Web users to visit the site.

Advertising for True Blood Steps Outside the Box

When HBO geared up for the second season premiere of True Blood, they hired Digital Kitchen to create an interesting ad campaign that would top the campaign for season one. Digital Kitchen enlisted the help of at least six major brands, from Harley-Davidson to Gillette, to create mock brand ads targeted to vampires. In advance of the new season, HBO increased their online image-based advertising for the show by almost 5,000 month-over-month, displaying 72.3 million online image-based ads in June 2009.

Did all of the advertising create the fervor that HBO was after? While buzz on Twilight eclipsed online discussions surrounding True Blood, there was a surge of conversation after the season two premiere. The number of online mentions nearly tripled the day of the premiere, increasing from .03 percent of all online conversations on the 13th to .07 percent on the 14th, which in turn also helped HBO buzz to increase during the days surrounding the launch of season two.

True Blood Helps Draw Online Video Viewers to HBO’s Site

With the second season premiere of True Blood on June 14, HBO experienced double digit growth month-over-month in unique viewers of video online, total video streams viewed, and time spent viewing video online. Total video streams viewed on HBO increased 299 percent, growing from 1.6 million streams in May 2009 to 6.4 million in June. Unique viewers of video increased 101 percent, while time spent viewing online increased 182 percent month-over-month.

While Twilight and True Blood have sparked a surge in interest around vampires, this is not a new phenomenon, but actually just a renewal of interest in these dark characters. Vampires have been a popular subject of fear and intrigue, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, to Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, to today’s Edward Cullen of Twilight. While the subject is the same, the avenues for connecting with other fans and staying up to date on what’s new are evolving. While you may have discussed Brad Pitt’s character in Interview over coffee with a friend 15 years ago, today you would share you love of last night’s True Blood episode with friends via Facebook.

The study, which analyzed viewership data for some of America’s favorite sports, uncovered that while Major League Baseball and NBA pull in comparable audiences for nationally televised broadcast, when compared to the actual fan base in the United States, the NBA significantly outperformed most of its peers; NBA games were able to get 7.8% of its fans, on average, to sit down and view the broadcast.

The study also highlighted the strength of engagement for the sports. NFL fans, on average, watch over an hour of each televised football event; this was the only sport of the four to have over an hour of engagement per televised event.

Read the full study.