Game of Thrones is distributed to over 170 countries worldwide and is currently the most popular and talked about TV show globally. Here I will be using a case study to explore the social media marketing technique used by some of the leading digital and advertising agencies within New Zealand. Their aim was to promote ‘Game of Thrones – Series 4’ to a new audience, those who had dismissed the series stating it ‘wasn’t for them’. With the fast approaching launch of GOT series 4, SKY saw an oppertunity to capitalise/monopolise on a new audience and they approached DDB with the brief:

‘to create a tactical campaign on a relitively small budget that would convice New Zealanders to SKY and/or SOHO’

DDB worked alongside Brandwatch to anayalise social media to identify key themes within the show – They found that King Joffrey was the topic of focus for a lot of the online conversations, his character drove the most passionate commentary – King Jeffrey is a hated across the world. What better way to engage a new audience than to empower the people? They decided to quite literally bring down the King with the power of social media.

DDB decided to relate King Jeffrey to other worldwide leaders(mainly dictators) who had been famously toppled around the world (think Saddam Hussein). – they commissoned a 7 meter high statue of King Jeffrey with a huge noose around his neck and placed it atop of a plinth in the world famous Aotea Square. They then encouraged fans to use the hash tag #bringdowntheking to turn the winch on the top – DDB live-streamed the whole affair online and eventually after a few days the statue of King Jeffrey was toppled live to the world.

The use of powerful and political current issues within the social media marketing domain is proven here to be highly engaging for audiences – this somewhat relates to the phenomena of sharing political messages through social media. If you look to the arab spring – you can see the way they promoted their message through the use of social media was highly effective and gained global attention. This idea can be approached by marketers through the use of current issues but i would issue caution for them to not over step the mark.