Cersei put it best—“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.”
During the show’s yearlong hiatus, a new GoT-inspired knight rose to power—the Bud Knight. So, for the Super Bowl, HBO collaborated with Bud Light to eliminate him in a GoT-style public execution, all to show the extreme measures fans of all types of kinds, even brands, would go to #ForTheThrone.
We tapped more than 25 cast and crew members from the series to ensure authenticity and to add Easter eggs for fans.
In 24 hours, we drove over 10.5M organic video views, 80K social mentions and almost 3,000 article mentions, resulting in 3B earned impressions and $30M in earned media value. It also trended on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Reddit and was ranked the number-one spot by many publications, proving that, even during the big game, there was only one game that mattered.
One of the most defining characteristics of Game of Thrones is its tendency to kill off main characters in highly public and unexpected ways. So, once we knew that the Bud Knight was to be executed, there was just one missing piece of the puzzle: the world needed to be watching, just as they do every Sunday night when they tune in to the show.
To pull this off, we used the Super Bowl—a night on which the country sits on the edge of their seats to see the iconic ads and characters they know and love take to the big screen—and then we did the unthinkable.
To ensure both the Bud Light and GoT worlds felt authentic, we used two directors, two editors, two finishing teams and 25 GoT crew members, including the director from the infamous “Red Wedding.” Easter eggs like music cues, crests and sigils from the show helped blend comedy with the horrific twist. We also shot each half of the spot using different camera angles, framing, lighting and color grading to create a distinct transition between the comedy of the Bud Light world and the gritty, chaotic and immersive GoT world.