Brand: HBO/“Game of Thrones”
Idea to Steal: Make an old medium—newspapers—cool again.
It takes a lot for a brand to do something exciting with newspapers these days, and not only because there are fewer of them to advertise in. Print just seems a tad dull compared with the shinier, sexier outlets available today—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and maybe even LinkedIn. But last February, HBO proved that all it takes to make print exciting is some out-of-the-box thinking—and a shadow.
To promote the third season of “Game of Thrones,” the TV network ran a subtle-yet-splashy two-page ad in The New York Times, featuring fake articles (with content related to the show) covered by the menacing shadow of a dragon. This dovetailed with the placement of a bigger dragon’s shadow covering the front of HBO’s headquarters in Los Angeles, as well as a dragon-shadow promotion on IMDB and dragon shadows appearing on the side of buses, among other places.
With the dragon’s shadow in The New York Times newspaper in particular, HBO was able to capture the attention of faithful watchers and non-watchers alike—the former getting a peek at an exciting component of the coming season, and the latter getting another reminder that they should consider watching the show all their friends blather about.
More recently, 20th Century Fox pulled off a similar stunt by buying two pages of The New York Times and leaving them blank, save for a film’s URL at the bottom of the second page.
For HBO, creative promotions for “GoT” weren’t anything new. Branded beer, show-related tattoos and show-themed food trucks have all been deployed by the network. But the dragon’s shadow in The New York Times stands out for reminding brands that even older can make for some eye-catching advertising.—JH
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