HBO tried something audacious earlier this month. To spark buzz for the season premiere of its Big Love series – about a man with three wives – HBO’s creative AOR came up with print ads for fake brands aimed at the, uh, polygamously inclined.

What kind of faux brands are we talking about? Well, one ad featured a very specialized travel agency called Polygaworld, and another extolled the power of a fragrance called Eau de Polygamie with the tagline, ‘Set yourself apart from his other wives.’ Then there was a spot for Polybrook Haven, a housing community with ‘enough room for every wife,’ and one for an erectile dysfunction drug called Polygarol. The only tip-off to the spoof was the inclusion, in tiny print, of the URL www.hbo.com/biglove.

So where did the net’s media AOR place the phony ads? In the travel, real estate and, yes, even the wedding announcements sections of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. NYC-based Creature did the creative, while PHD’s New York team handled the media buys.