Cinemax’s New Vine Campaign Is Unintentionally Hilarious

A lot of creative folks are doing some interesting things with Vine, the six-second mobile video app. But throw enough spaghetti against the wall and not everything is going to stick.

Case in point: Cinemax’s latest marketing campaign for “Banshee,” the network’s action series soon to kick off a new season.

The concept is cute: Get a few of your show’s stars to act out six-second vignettes — in character — using Vine. It’s a teaser for eager fans of the show, and one that could kickstart some viral sharing — every marketer’s dream.

The problem is, it just doesn’t work, at least here. Look at one example below:

Now, I have no clue who this guy is, or why I should care to watch him pound shots and opine into the camera. But feeling dramatic tension, I’m not. It’s at first absurd, then over repeated viewing, it slowly becomes just plain funny to watch. Hardly the type of emotion the “Banshee” producers were going for, I’d guess.

Granted, I’m not a “Banshee” loyalist and may not be the target audience for a campaign like this. But even for fans of the show, the clips aren’t well done. The clip below, which seems to feature a tattooed, mumbling priest, runs out of time before the actor can get all of his lines out:

And then there are some that are just plain weird:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for experimentation, especially when it comes to making advertising for the mainstream actually entertaining. But this batch of Vines just isn’t doing it for me.

Perhaps Cinemax’s marketers could learn a thing or two from Ian Padgham — a.k.a., Origiful.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.