Game of Thrones uses social clues and games to tout the season seven premiere
Winter is officially here for Game of Thrones fans. In its final social campaign leading up to the season seven premiere of the wildly popular show, HBO will confirm that winter is coming by taking over the Summer Solstice today, June 21, with 'winterizing' activations across Twitter, Reddit and Google.
Game of Thrones season seven social campaign
It kicks off with a new, winter-themed trailer for season seven, announcing #WinterIsHere. As soon as the trailer drops, Game of Thrones will activate a Twitter Emoji Engine that gives fans the chance to unlock exclusive new character art. Notably, the poster art and other exclusive content will only be distributed via the Twitter Emoji Engine, marking it the first time the tool has been used to release key marketing materials.
Fans can race to figure out the right combinations of @GameofThrones + #WinterIsHere + [emoji] to reveal each of season seven’s highly-anticipated character posters.
Throughout the day, Game of Thrones will respond in real-time to summer-themed conversations happening on Twitter, sharing winter-themed gifs, and reminding everyone that despite the warm weather, #WinterIsHere on July 16. Additionally, use of the #WinterIsHere hashtag will activate a special Night King Hashflag graphic and certain combinations of emojis will trigger fun content related to other HBO shows.
Other integrated campaign activations will include a first-ever branded gift exchange for the one million plus Game of Thrones subscribers on Reddit, a first-to-market TV series reimagining of Reddit’s masthead alien mascot (from Snoo to a Game of Thrones inspired “Jon Snoo”), real-time posts and updates on Game of Thrones' Google search results page, and finally, a #WinterIsHere primetime marathon on HBO 2.
Credits
Client: HBO
Agency: 360i
Sabrina Caluori, SVP Digital and Social Marketing, HBO
Jim Marsh, VP Digital and Social Marketing, HBO
Emily Giannusa, Director, Digital and Social Marketing, HBO
Tanner Stransky, Director, Digital and Social Marketing, HBO
Michael Hoffman, Manager, Digital and Social Media
Katie Lucas, Manager, Digital and Social Marketing, HBO
Sohyung Kang, Director, Digital and Social Marketing, HBO
Sarah Milik, Associate Producer, Digital and Social Marketing, HBO
Group Creative Director: Jeff Anderson
Associate Creative Director: Benjamin Morejon
Associate Creative Director: Andrew Curtis
Senior Copywriter: Andrew Hunter
Senior Art Director: Doug Murray
Executive Producer: Patrick Soria
Producer: Austin Shore
Group Account Director: Josh Lenze
Account Supervisor: Danielle Calogera
Sr. Account Manager: Allison Guggenheimer
Strategist: Stephanie Bousquet
Social Strategist: Alexis Madison