I’ve been asked this question in countless interviews and conversations and my answer doesn’t change. HBO’s Game of Thrones (which yes, i’m biased, it is my favourite show) blows me away each season with their cohesive campaigns.
Keep in mind that the book series had a huge fan base, and then there were those people who were very interested in the books but didn’t feel up to the daunting task of plowing 4,273 pages (and that’s just books one to five!). Creating the television show was bound to be successful, yet they had an incredible amount of drive behind their marketing campaigns, incorporating a number of digital platforms in addition to innovative traditional marketing.
Their most notable social media campaign was #RoastJoffrey which was launched in December 2013. Now, if you don’t know the series, Joffrey is the boy-king that is so ruthless and horrible fans love to hate him. This social media roast received engagements not only from fans, but brands and influencers as well reaching more than 60,000 roasts, 1 million interactions, and 850 million impressions in the first 48 hours (Also note that this was during the shows off-season).
Sourced from FastCompany
Photo taken from Lightly Buzzed
Game of Thrones is recognized for killing off your favourite characters in horribly spectacular ways when you least expect it. Building off of this, they did a 30-day countdown to the season four premiere titled “Beautiful Death” which released photos depicting some of the most significant deaths across the series thus far. Not only did these photos receive engagement from fans, but also allowed them to submit their own artwork that could potentially be shared online. With some of the brand fanatics – this was exactly the opportunity they were looking for.
Photos Sourced from “Beautiful Death”
The show works masterfully across multiple channels from Twitter to Facebook to Tumblr. Another of my favourite pieces – that is so simple – is their Vine feed. Building up to a season premiere, they hype up the release of a teaser trailer across platforms, and then post previews (yes, previews of their previews) on their vine. The resources for this are minimal – the teaser is already made – just find an 8 second snipit to preview and watch it go viral.
These are only a few of the many digital strategies the brand has used to engage it’s audience and they all work seamlessly across platforms. Considering that the target audience of the television show is for young adults this is the perfect way to push marketing strategies as this demographic is highly interactive online. I always look forward to what they will come up with in the upcoming season – the anticipation is almost as much as I have when the show rolls around!
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