| Title | DOORS OF THRONES |
| Brand | TOURISM IRELAND |
| Product/Service | TOURISM |
| Category |
B06. Use of Ambient Media: Large Scale |
|
Entrant
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PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
|
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Idea Creation
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PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
|
|
Media Placement
|
PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
|
|
PR
|
PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
|
|
Production
|
PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
|
Credits
| Leo Bellis-Jones |
Publicis London |
Copywriter |
| Josh Norbury |
Publicis London |
Art Director |
| Alex Buckland |
Publicis London |
Account Director |
| Ben Mckee |
Publicis London |
Account Manager |
| Pavlos Themistocleous |
Publicis London |
Creative Director |
| Dave Monk |
Publicis London |
Creative Director |
| Mark Wesley |
Publicis London |
Head of Image Production |
| Joy Desseigne |
Publicis London |
Account Executive |
| Duncan Rogers |
Publicis London |
Designer |
| Rachel Haines |
Publicis London |
Digital Producer |
| Kal Parmar |
Publicis London |
Producer |
| Iain Macarthur |
Publicis London |
Illustrator |
| Sam Dunn |
Publicis London |
Illustrator |
| Steve Mitchell |
Publicis London |
Illustrator |
| Joanna Malecka |
Publicis London |
Illustrator |
| Alice Duke |
Publicis London |
Illustrator |
| Kieran McKay |
Publicis London |
Illustrator |
| Compain Samuel |
Publicis London |
Illustrator |
| Radd Nadesananthan |
Publicis London |
Social Media Strategist |
| Tash Tung |
Believe Media |
Director |
| Andrew Stewart |
Subfish |
Director |
The Campaign
Over ten weeks, we transformed the trees that fell that day into 10 beautifully carved, bespoke doors, each depicting the storylines and themes from a different episode in Game of Thrones season 6.
Each week a new door was installed at the beating heart of a Northern Irish community – the local pub of a Game of Thrones filming location.
Together the doors now form a pub-crawl through season 6 that spans the length and breadth of the country.
With every new door the story grew.
What began as a tragedy is now a worldwide celebration of Northern Ireland’s links with the most popular TV show of all time.
A permanent fixture embedded in Northern Irish Culture.
The trees that fell that day were transformed from a devastated tourist attraction, into a brand new one, using two things now synonymous with Northern Ireland. Game of Thrones. And Pubs.
Creative Execution
To create the stunning doors, world-class illustrators reacted to episodes and sketched out designs based on that week’s plot line.
Once the illustrators had worked their magic, the designs were sent to a CGI artist who interpreted the sketches into in 3D. These were given to a specialist woodworker who carved the designs using a CNC machine. The doors were then stained and polished by a set designer, hung in situ and photographed before being unveiled to the public.
All of this happened in a week, every week, for 10 weeks. This mammoth undertaking involved a team of highly skilled people seamlessly working together on a scale none of us had attempted before.
Tourism Ireland was welcomed into Game of Thrones fan culture. For 10 weeks, fans were actively seeking out our content.
But most importantly, the Game of Thrones pub-crawl is now a pilgrimage for Game of Thrones fans around the world.
Independent companies have set up tours of all 10 doors, receiving bookings from as far as Japan, the US, and Australia.
One of the pubs reported a doubling of profits since the trail was completed.
MTV: “The Irish Game of Thrones pub crawl is literally everything”
Cosmopolitan: “You NEED to know about this Game of Thrones pub crawl”
ITV News: “These doors are part of Game of Thrones history”
126,000,000 People Reached
17,876,088 Views
1,821,486 Likes
79,000 web visits per week of the campaign
A growth of 25,000 visitors to filming locations compared to 2015
As a community, Game of Thrones fans generate a huge amount of content across a wide range of media.
So to engage with this tightknit group, producing interesting content wasn’t enough. We had to get creative with the way we used the actual media itself, and present our message in a way they’d never seen before.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea
The rugged yet beautiful Northern Irish countryside provides the perfect backdrop for the mythical land of Westeros. We want to position Northern Ireland as the home to Game of Thrones.
But the show’s fans are highly active online, and generate a huge amount of content, so anything we produced solely through digital channels risked being drowned out.
Fans are also notoriously critical of brands attempting to piggyback on the show’s popularity. So advertising through traditional media was ruled out.
Instead we aimed to present our message in a new and unexpected way.
The battered tourist attraction became our media, allowing us to draw attention to filming locations across the country. We aimed to turn the wood into works of art so appealing that fans would actively want to visit each site.