Here Be Dragons: Fire-Breathing Beasts Land for House of the Dragon Launch

Who doesn’t love a dragon? Fiery breath, keen teeth and magnificent leathery wings, these fantastical winged serpents have grasped our collective imagination in their talons for millennia. And with the launch of the new series, ‘House of the Dragon’, a prequel to the global megahit Game of Thrones, wyvern-mania is about to take flight again.

The series, which has just premiered on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW in the UK and HBO Max in the USA, is taking viewers back into the fictional history of Westeros. To celebrate this and generate hype, Sky and NOW have collaborated on a huge OOH and PR campaign that’s fit for a king.

Speaking about the campaign, which has seen the marketing teams at Sky and NOW pull together on several firsts, Olivia Browne, marketing director, Sky Entertainment says, “The HOTD campaign has been a collaboration as epic as the show itself with a number of firsts for Sky and NOW, including a cinematic premiere worthy of the show, 3D DOOH with fire-breathing dragons and a ground-breaking throne tour. I couldn’t be prouder of the way that the team has pushed creative boundaries to deliver an outstanding campaign.  We can’t wait for the dragons to be unleashed…”

One of the big selling points for fantasy fans - aside from the chance to see the downfall of House Targaryen - is that dragons are front and centre in the series. That’s why the marketing teams have sought to bring the monstrously mythical lizards into our world through an eye catching 3D digital OOH campaign. These immersive billboards will see dragons touch down in the UK in Nottingham, Birmingham, London, Norwich, Glasgow, Milan and Dublin.

And in Birmingham, people are set to get an extra fright with a site-specific DOOH execution that sees a giant, gleaming dragon’s eye look down across the city.

NOW has also taken the lead on a UK-wide tour of the iconic Iron Throne, which has already popped up at the Tower of London, London’s Leicester Square, Cardiff and White City London - later this week it heads beyond the wall to Edinburgh.

There’s also been a takeover across Sky and NOW platforms, with each brand’s logo set ablaze with a fiery makeover.

According to Jamie Schwartz, NOW Marketing and Merchandising Director, these experiences and activations have ignited the Game of Thrones fanbase. “There are few fandoms in the world that can rival Game of Thrones. Working with Sky, we wanted to deliver a beast of a campaign and provide a fan experience like no other for House of the Dragon. We invited fans to be the first in the world to sit on the new-look Iron Throne, we focused on money can’t buy fan experiences and exclusives across our media and device partners, and created a bespoke identity igniting our brand logo. We are everywhere our fans are, and we couldn’t be more delighted for them to share in this powerful prequel to Game of Thrones.”

This campaign is the first time that Sky and NOW have collaborated on the same campaign using the same creative direction. It’s also the first time that, aside from localised tweaks, all Sky territories have run the same campaign. This includes 3D digital out-of-home, TV spots and brand identities. It was created using the Brand Hub model within Sky Creative.

The campaign is the latest in a push within Sky and Sky Creative to stretch their wings and show up in unexpected places. The launch of the recent The Midwich Cuckoos’ series saw the team build unnerving installations populated by creepy children - while this year’s Sky Broadband push has seen the team bring the Minions to outlandish special builds, even going so far as to set up a slide in a shopping centre.