Apple TV sends ‘definitely not cursed’ Widow’s Bay billboard around Cape Cod

Apple TV has celebrated Widow’s Bay winning a record 14 Emmys by sending a floating billboard into the waters around Cape Cod, extending the horror-comedy’s fictional tourism campaign into the real New England coastline.

The stunt turns the central joke of the Matthew Rhys series into outdoor advertising. Widow’s Bay may be plagued by supernatural horrors, but its mayor Tom Loftis remains determined to sell the island as the region’s next great holiday destination and, crucially, “definitely not cursed”.

So Apple has taken the rivalry to sea. The billboard promotes the fictional town while the wider campaign playfully takes aim at genuine tourist favourites including Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, positioning Widow’s Bay as the hotter coastal destination.

It is a neat piece of world-building because the advertising behaves exactly as marketing from the show would. It also lands in a place audiences already associate with the story. Although Widow’s Bay itself is fictional, much of the series was filmed around Massachusetts, including Rockport and Gloucester.

The activation follows Apple TV previously boasting that Widow’s Bay had earned more Emmy nominations than “Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod, and Nantucket combined”. The joke now has more weight: the series won 14 awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series, setting a new single-year Emmy record for a comedy.

Apple TV has form for letting its shows escape into the real world. Its Severance Grand Central stunt recreated Lumon’s workplace in the middle of New York, while giant dinosaur footprints appeared on a Welsh beach for Prehistoric Planet.

The streamer’s most recent appearance on Famous Campaigns came with its new glass-built Apple TV ident, created with TBWA\Media Arts Lab and captured entirely in-camera.

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