SKY TV, who have exclusive rights to broadcast Game of Thrones in New Zealand, have worked alongside DDB in order to convince New Zealanders to sign up to SKY and/or SoHo. By focusing on the viewers hatred towards King Joffrey, DDB have created a tactful campaign through promoting Season 4 Game of Thrones. Using the momentum of excited fans, DDB have managed to convince those who had previously said they are ‘not interested’ in the Fantasy Drama.

By using Brandwatch Analytics, DDB were able to compare the volumes and tones of different aspects of the show. They found that the most spirited discussions of the show were centred around Joffrey, King of King’ s Landing. The fans of the show had a collective hatred towards the young King. This was DDB’s way in.

A 7 metre tall statue was placed in Aotea Square ( large public location in Auckland that is often used to hold events including concerts, markets and political rallies) with a noose around it’s neck.

In Australasia’s largest live streaming event in history, fans were encouraged to help bring down the king through the use of social media. Any post that included #bringdowntheking would pull the noose tighter, eventually toppling the king.

Brandwatch was used extensively to analyse and track the hash tag, as well as find opportunities to broaden the campaign. Those on Twitter with high follower counts were given special status (e.g. made a member of the honorary House of Stark) which they could share with their followers, broadening the campaign to those that followed them.

The agency charted volume of mentions per hour, to examine the engagement in each region. DDB would reach out to the local Game of Throne’s communities in the native languages of those who had the smallest engagement. e.g. France and Brazil.

‘Brandwatch was invaluable in working out the exposure the campaign had received in global media, the cumulative reach of the campaign, and the local impact seen through pictures taken and shared on Instagram’ said Michiel Cox, Digital Planner, DDB.

Using Brandwatch Analytics to optimize their activity, allowed DDB to record almost 875,000 individual interactions relating to the campaign and managed to reach 43 million people in 168 countries.