Brief: Make Season 6 of Game of Thrones the most watched of all seasons in the show’s history.

Objectives:

• Grow total consumption of GoT across all Sky products (live TV & catch-up boxsets)

• Drive conversation and talk-ability

• Drive desire to watch every episode

Challenge:

Prevent churn and get viewers to return for S6:

Season 5 enjoyment scores had fallen from 94% to 81% YOY. As a result, only 79% of viewers said that they will definitely return for S6.

Convert remaining 1.5m headroom

There’s a thriving conversation around GoT, research showed that latecomers are drawn into GoT by the buzz surrounding the show or by being talked into it by friends/ family. Unlocking fan potential was key to driving FOMO and WOM for S6.

Create desire to watch every episode

6 seasons of viewing, 50 episodes, should be positioned as a positive rather than be a barrier.

The implementation of this campaign ran over a number of phases across multiple touch points.

Phase 1: Targeted DRTV and Email encouraging existing customers to sample the first season for free, generating conversation

Phase 2: Utilised influencers in the form of celebrity Game of Thrones fans to tell everyone why they should “Surrender to Game of Thrones” through their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Phase 3: Built on initial social conversation by encouraging people to create sharable, online content that showed why their friends should #SurrenderToGoT, stimulated through a social competition.

Phase 4: Capitalised on social conversation and drove awareness through the use of real fan quotes and advocacy across visual press, tube/OOH and TV.

Utilising all of the above, helped convert hold outs and lapsed fans into a legion of new viewers – driving upgrades to Sky Box Sets and viewership of Season 6 on Sky Atlantic