Does social media have the power to #bringdowntheking?

For the upcoming release of Game of Thrones season four Sky set DDB the challenge of engaging with their current subscribers in New Zealand to promote their new channel and sign up new subscribers to Sky.

While Game of Thrones is immensely popular, the target for DDB’s campaign were those who had already dismissed the show as ‘not for them’. So they had to come up with a way to infect the population of New Zealand with Game of Thrones and create an online conversation engaging both fans and those who had dismissed the show.

DDB built a statute of King Joffrey, arguably the most hated character on TV, in Aotea Square, Auckland, complete with ropes around the statues neck.

The challenge was then posted to social media, every tweet with the hashtag #bringdowntheking would turn the winch to eventually topple the king.

DDB streamed this live and the online buzz surrounding the campaign was huge. The campaign reached 43 million people in 168 countries resulting in 875,000 interactions online. DDB had created a viral challenge engaging almost the entire population of New Zealand, and capturing the attention of the world.

Viral campaigns are notoriously hard to initiate but how did DDB make their campaign work?

• Viral campaigns are about emotions, what better way to get people envolved than to give them the chance to kill their most hated character on TV?
• It was unexpected. A giant statue of King Joffrey? People are going to take notice, regardless if they like the show or not.
• Sharing online is what allows viral marketing work, by giving people a chance to have their say, the campaign is promoting itself while connecting with the audience.  (KissMetrics, 2015) <<< Click here to see the full Viral Marketing infographic!!

The exposure from this campaign was huge, and DDB have set an example of viral marketing done well.