Hello marketers,
This week, ahead of Game of Thrones' final season premiere, over 100 brands released some sort of partnership or promotion with the show. While HBO certainly doesn't need to promote the juggernaut, brands certainly recognize the power of the fan base and the potential to connect with consumers. And it's unusual for a television show to get this kind of love from brands. Usually, this is reserved for big movies (think the Deadpool tie-ins.)
Heck, I'm not even a fan of the show (I know, I know), but I am very jealous of my co-workers who got to meet Raven Symone last week as part of a promotional tie-in with Mountain Dew. Symone was the Raven, so to speak, sent to the Adweek office to show the team how Mountain Dew's cans would change when chilled to show off Arya Stark's kill list.
Now, ahead of the show's premiere this weekend, Adweek reporter Sara Jerde rounded up the cream of the crop, so to speak, of the GoT brand stunts. (HBO really went all in on the Raven thing; New York Media's sites got a raven takeover today.) KFC even brought back its lauded campaign, smartly using spicy fried chicken as flames of a dragon.
Reimagining the media ecosystem: P&G's Marc Prichard spent this week making another statement about the media supply chain and the "dark side" within it. There's not only waste, a lack of transparency and fraud but ad blocking and privacy breaches. That's why Prichard told attendees of the ANA Media Conference that he wants marketers to "embrace a new media supply chain."
Quote of the Week: “I think so often we live in a world where customers don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong and you need to find the source of the truth. [Companies] like The New York Times and Everlane can stand for truth and hold ourselves accountable to that, [and that’s] really important,” Michael Preysman, CEO and founder of Everlane, told reporter Ann-Marie Alcántara about the new Everlane and The New York Times partnership.
Say What? Burger King is giving out 1.5 million "flamed-grilled" drinking glasses in France. What it means and why the brand is doing it, well, weird marketing always works for BK in a way that it works for so few brands.
Lesson of the Week from Inside the Brand: Nadine Dietz sat down with Tina Walsh, the new chief brand officer at Tongal, a platform that connects filmmakers and brands, to learn about her new gig.
"Tongal is all about connecting the world’s creative talent to the world’s creative work. The fact is, creative people live everywhere, not just in Hollywood or off Madison Avenue. 53% of creators on Tongal are female," Walsh told Dietz. "In stark contrast, from 2007-2017, women directed just 4% of Hollywood’s top-grossing 1,100 films. So, while underrepresented voices are finding fewer career opportunities in Hollywood, they are winning on Tongal."
Thanks for reading,
Brands Editor
Kristina Monllos
