Game of Fiery Creativity
Why the GoT Season 7 release date announcement worked so well
As an advertising and marketing enthusiast, I’ve always admired gimmicks and campaigns that break the norm, challenge the status quo and creatively exceed the boundaries of imagination. Such was the gimmick to launch the Season 7 release date of one of the most popular shows of the decade: Game of Thrones.
There are debates about how it’s increasingly detrimental to the mass psyche, that it’s pandering to the lowest level of intellect across the world, and that it’s largely a step backward in feminism. As a staunch feminist, I see it — and needless to say, wish it weren’t so. However, this post is purely out of appreciation of the gimmick that ended right now.
It was launched as a Facebook Live video at around 8PM CET. With the classic GoT theme music (by the brilliant composer: Ramin Djawadi), the video showed a huge block of ice visibly hiding what seemed like a block of stone that may have perhaps revealed the date. It was set on a stone slab in the middle of a room surrounded with fire torches hung up on cobbled walls. Here’s what it asked of thousands of viewers who were waiting in anticipation to see what the release date would be:
Comment ‘FIRE’ or ‘DRACARYS’.
With every couple of hundred comments, they’d blow a torch of fire right on the slab so as to accelerate the melting, and result in a sooner revelation. With over 127.1k (and increasing; as noted at 8:41PM CET) people glued to the screen, they’d periodically nudge people by having a cast member encourage viewers to keep commenting. The entire gimmick went on for over 45 minutes in total with the block of ice melting in front of thousands of viewers in real time.
For all the suspense created, I must admit the immediate revelation of the date was rather anti-climactic (I expected a better sound effect for one). However, their animated season teaser, ending with the voiceover, “There is only one war that matters. The Great War. And it is here,” more than satiated viewers’ desires.
The numbers ended with a viewership of over 81k, and Facebook reactions exceeding a whopping 208k.
A large part of the successful gimmick’s credit is owed to the brand value of the show. How it’s managed to retain its loyal fan base who’d spend over an hour worth their time watching a block of ice melt in anticipation. But the things I particularly appreciated out of the campaign were:
- Creativity The idea itself
- Leveraging Anticipation How they leveraged the pre-existing anticipation for the content (in this case the release date) making it relevant to the viewers
- Exclusivity of Platform How they effectively identified and utilized the resources (Facebook Live) of the platform that would ensure maximum awareness
- Engagement How they managed to create such a massive engagement and the ever-chased concept of ‘virality’ in the digital world (note that I got to know about it because a friend of mine shared it on her Facebook timeline)
- Retention How they managed to retain such a massive engagement over such a long time period
- Brand Compliance How all the elements of the idea (style of communication, visual elements, music) complied so thoroughly with their brand (brand being the show itself)
- Closure How they managed to quench the anticipation of the viewers by leveraging the season teaser and giving a great closure to the gimmick
It’s not often we see such massive engagements. But I believe as long as these things can be checked off our lists, more often than not we’re going to end up with an impactful campaign.
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PS: I’m always open to learn and discuss and would love to hear your thoughts on the same.
