Game of Thrones and the Immersive Marketing Hiccup
The Game of Thrones/Bud Light Super Bowl commercial mashup was an exhilarating moment for ad geeks, fantasy geeks, and people who like their beer to taste like water. As a member of all three cohorts, I might have been the ad’s single most perfect impression.
On the surface it’s just a fun 30-second ditty, but dig deep and it’s both a commentary on the cultural resonance of Game of Thrones and a warning sign for the narrative apostasy that was to follow.
For some context, Game of Thrones is MASSIVE. It, along with Avengers: Endgame, might turn out to be the last artifact of the 20th century monoculture (but that’s a commentary for another day). For more context, Game of Thrones is HBO’s most popular and highest rated series ever, in an era when every linear TV programmer is witnessing historic lows every day. And more than just its size, it has depth. In a study Mindshare conducted at the end of 2017 examining the popularity of franchises among US audiences, we found that Game of Thrones was the property that fans most wanted more of. In fact, 54% of consumers who watch any Game of Thrones content want to consume more.
So it’s no surprise that an entire industry has been built on Games-adjacent content. The inevitable mobile games and slot machines and board games and… independent craft beer? And medieval cookbooks? And three hundred-page textbooks on the history of the fictional quasi-fantasy world of Westeros? Intricately carved wooden doors from a destroyed Northern Ireland tourist attraction? The licensing/co-marketing of Game of Thrones seemed remarkable: more than brand extension, this was brand penetration — experiences designed to create the depth that consumers demanded.
As a marketing professional, this was cool. But as a marketing professional with a deep interest in immersive entertainment, this was nirvana. Games of Thrones was ushering in a new era of brand/entertainment partnerships that was more about story extension than simply co-branding. Now brands (and their products) could and would serve as story-experiencing outlets for fans. There had been forays into this world before (Columbia’s Empire Strikes Back jackets come to mind), but as arguably the most popular franchise of the moment, HBO and Game of Thrones were making it happen at scale.
And then the Super Bowl happened… And a dragon crossed over into a light beer commercial. For a fan of the show, it was anything but a story extension. (“There is no Bud Light in Westeros!”) But it was just a gag, right? A one-time stunt to get a chuckle. But then came Game of Thrones-branded Oreos. And a recreation of the show’s title sequence (“Which also doesn’t exist in Westeros!”) by Mountain Dew, which featured some musicians and an NBA player. And the show’s very own Hodor, actor Kristian Nairn, appearing at AT&T stores to promote something called the “Dragon Wagon (“The show would have lasted about 20 minutes if they had cell phones in Westeros!”) And the kicker: HBO’s own Bleed for the Throne “immersive experience” at SXSW, where attendees gave blood in exchange for a t-shirt. Putting aside the obvious societal benefits and cleverness of the promotion, it seems a bit overdone. (“THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE BLOOD TYPING CAPABILITIES IN WESTEROS AND ANYONE WHO NEEDED BLOOD THAT BADLY THERE WOULD LIKELY HAVE DIED FROM THEIR WOUNDS ANYWAY!”)
It seemed HBO had regressed and gone back to the same tried and true co-promotional strategy entertainment brands have been using for decades, rebuffing the chance to change the Game and make the marketing part of the story.
But I might be wrong: the cognitive dissonance I’m sensing between the story of Game of Thrones and the marketing of Game of Thrones might be because I misunderstand the “story.” Maybe this all makes perfect sense because Westeros is no longer the setting of this tale. Maye Game of Thrones got so big, so culturally dominant, that the meta-narrative has become the narrative itself. The plot is no longer what happens to Jon Snow and Daenarys or Davos, it’s where we watched, with who, and while eating what. It’s whether the predictions we cribbed from Reddit were right, or if we saw the off off off broadway parody show, or in which sequence we consumed the books and TV seasons.
Which might be why the Bud Light spot seemed so natural — because it wasn’t a warning sign so much as an acknowledgment that the story of Game of Thrones had spread beyond the inches of our TV or the margins of the books into the culture we actually live in here on Earth. The “Dilly Dilly” concept itself was undoubtedly designed to capitalize on the increased affinity for “medievalish stuff” that Game of Thrones kicked off.
And more practically, I’ve just realized that after 8 seasons of watching religiously, I’m going to be on a flight while the final episode airs in May. I’m praying to the Lord of Light that Singapore Airlines creates a last-minute promotion so I can watch live, even if they have to paint a dragon on the side of the plane.
