BRING DOWN THE KING

Bronze Spike
TitleBRING DOWN THE KING
BrandSKY TELEVISION
Product / ServiceGAME OF THRONES SEASON 4 LAUNCH
EntrantDDB GROUP NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Entrant Company DDB GROUP NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Advertising Agency DDB GROUP NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Production Company FINCH Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Credits

Name Company Position
Shane Bradnick DDB Group New Zealand Executive Creative Director
Chris Schofield DDB Group New Zealand Creative Director
Haydn Kerr DDB Group New Zealand Digital Creative Director
Rory Mckechnie DDB Group New Zealand Creative
Adam Thompson DDB Group New Zealand Creative
James Blair DDB Group New Zealand Senior Account Director
Georgia Newton DDB Group New Zealand Account Manager
Tania Jeram DDB Group New Zealand Agency Producer
Judy Thompson DDB Group New Zealand Executive Agency Producer
Paul Pritchard DDB Group New Zealand Digital Director
Liz Knox DDB Group New Zealand Digital Executive Producer
Sam Schrey DDB Group New Zealand Senior Digital Designer
Jason Vertongen DDB Group New Zealand Lead Digital Designer
Cameron Crosby DDB Group New Zealand Lead Developer
Cain Coulton DDB Group New Zealand Developer
Sean Brown DDB Group New Zealand/Mango Senior Account Director
Eleisha Balmer DDB Group New Zealand/Mango Senior Account Manager
Jack Murphy DDB Group New Zealand Social Planner
Michiel Cox DDB Group New Zealand Digital Planner
Troy Goodall IDC Photographer
Rob Galluzzo Finch Executive Producer
Michael Hilliard Finch Executive Producer
Camilla Dehnert Finch Producer
Bruce Everard Finch Production Designer

The Campaign

To promote the season premiere of Game of Thrones on SKY TV cable channel SoHo, we wanted to demonstrate we were just as fanatical about good programming as the fans who watch it. We knew anticipation globally would be huge, but we needed to ensure SoHo was part of conversation - we needed a local campaign that leveraged support from the global audience. The plan? Give fans the one thing they all wanted - the chance to bring down the evil King Joffrey.

Success of the Campaign

#bringdowntheking trended on twitter from the moment the campaign started until the day after it went down, at many points the top trending topic. Tweets came from over 130 countries, including Antarctica, El Salvador and Iraq. Our branded website was the most viewed live stream in New Zealand and Australian history. Total campaign reach was 66 million, with 875,000 direct interactions, as well as thousands of photos and videos posted to Instagram, Tumblr and Youtube. In the four days leading up to the international premiere, one in every twenty conversations about Game of Thrones worldwide was in reference to our campaign. Importantly for our client though, New Zealanders were the most engaged throughout the campaign, tweeting at a higher rate than anyone else. And this showed in the premiere’s ratings – gaining an audience 20% higher than last season’s premiere.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

Five days before the premiere, we erected a seven metre statue of King Joffrey in Auckland’s largest public square. We then invited fans worldwide to topple the statue, via a winch with a rope that that was activated every time the hashtag #bringdowntheking was used on Twitter. To gain immediate awareness, we engaged the hosts of the country’s top-rating radio station to launch the campaign, before securing local and international media coverage to spread the word further. Die-hard GoT fans were engaged via proactive seeding on fansites. Street stenciling from the show’s rival Houses of Westeros, as well as stenciling over our own branded billboards and busbacks with #bringdowntheking further raised awareness. Fans could monitor the progress of the King’s demise via a constant live stream at our dedicated website bringdowntheking.com or visit the statue in person, which thousands did to watch the statue fall, all with no official warning.