Frey Celebrations, because we understand the importance of your vows. With this slogan, another brand from ‘Game of Brands’, a series of fictional advertisements presenting modern versions of the houses from HBO’s series ‘Game of Thrones’, was introduced to the virtual world.
The Frey house can logically be imagined in some parallel universe as wedding organizers who truly honor their promises, considering that in the bloody, penultimate episode of the third season ‘Red Wedding’, they slaughtered members of the Stark family due to one broken vow. Viewers were lulled to sleep by tears that evening, and the next morning witnessed a wave of reactions and comments on social media, portals, and similar virtual meeting places. Not only did the producers of ‘Game of Thrones’ confirm the cult status of the series, but they also realized the power of the internet, which has been their main medium for promotion since the beginning of broadcasting. The team behind the adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s novels demonstrated how skilled they are in this marketing part of the story, without which the seven kingdoms of Westeros would not have gained a multimillion audience.
Five Senses The love for ‘Game of Thrones’ and the internet began in 2011 when HBO hired the agency Campfire with the task of introducing the audience to this then-new series, which was supposed to approach the viewership and popularity of ‘True Blood’. Instead of launching a classic multimedia campaign, the agency decided to target the most influential people from the virtual world, provide them with an experience for all five senses, and then let them introduce viewers to the new series through word-of-mouth marketing. Selected ‘influencers’ or bloggers with pedigree received a package in the first ’round’ of the campaign containing 15 carefully selected fragrant essences that attempted to show how the kingdoms of Westeros and Essos, two fictional continents where the action takes place, smell. These scents extended their life on the website TheMastersPath.com, allowing users to discover symbols associated with the scents and thus unlock scenes from the series. In the next phase of the campaign, the sense of hearing was played with by creating taverns on the aforementioned site where gossip about the kingdoms was exchanged, so selected fans and bloggers had to strain their ears to hear what was being discussed, thus completing tasks and discovering new clips from the series. In something resembling an arcade game where users became members of the ‘Night’s Watch’, the sense of sight was targeted, while the sense of touch was ‘satisfied’ by a very interesting application that connects local weather forecasts with the weather in Westeros. For example, if it was raining, the application would inform the user that it was raining, for instance, in Riverrun.
Synergy with the Virtual Logically, the only sense of taste was satisfied in the real world, as the Campfire team set up trucks where top chefs prepared food from ‘Game of Thrones’. In Los Angeles and New York, 300 dishes were served daily, which meticulously followed Martin’s vision of gastronomy from the seven kingdoms. Fans learned about the locations via Twitter, and the rest of the virtual world informed about the quality of the offerings through that and other social networks and blogs. Additionally, the organizers made an effort to connect the menus with the online game, so the most attentive could find a key on TheMastersPath.com that revealed the last scene of the first season of the series. Although the basic package was sent to only about a hundred addresses, the total number of registered fans on the site rose to 37,000, 12,000 downloaded the Ice and Fire app, and more than 190,000 users engaged with at least one element of the campaign. The word of mouth that was initiated is responsible for the fact that 2.2 million viewers in America watched the first episode.
