Westworld promotion is well underway ahead of its premiere on Sunday. There was a fully immersive experience at SXSW, hidden secrets in trailers and posters, and, most recently, an epic reddit Rickroll trolling the show’s spoiler culture.
But NOW TV, a telecommunications company that streams Westworld in the United Kingdom, delivered the craziest piece of promotion yet. They created a super-realistic robot named Fred and plopped him in a London pub unbeknownst to fellow merry drinkers.
As the above video shows, several unsuspecting people tried to start a conversation with Fred before realizing he wasn’t, in fact, a real bloke. In his glitchy robot vernacular, Fred asked pub attendees questions like, “What are your thoughts on the impending humanoid robot invasion?” and “Humanoid robots are so much useful than humans, don’t you think?” You know, casual bar talk.
According to Mashable, Fred was developed by Engineered Arts, a U.K.-based company that creates robots for “communication, entertainment, and research.” It took engineers three months to fully construct Fred before unleashing him into the wild.
In the bar, Fred also dropped some not-so-subtle hints that he was there to promote the HBO series. In interviews with pub patrons at the end of the video, one woman said of Fred: “He was very engaging and, umm, really wanted me to watch Westworld.” Hopefully the intended effect worked and didn’t scare people away from the show forever.
Westworld returns to HBO this Sunday, April 22 at 9PM ET/PT. Will you be watching? Let us know in the comments!
Image: NOW TV
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