| Title | DOORS OF THRONES |
| Brand | TOURISM IRELAND |
| Product/Service | TOURISM |
| Category |
A04. Travel, Leisure, Retail, Restaurants & Fast Food Chains |
|
Entrant
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PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
|
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Idea Creation
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PUBLICIS LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
|
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Media Placement
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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
While fans were sharing the terrible story, we were busy gathering up the famous fallen trees.
Then, as the storm clouds cleared, fans watched online as we transformed the trees that fell into 10 beautifully carved doors, each depicting an episode from GoT season 6.
Every week a new door was installed at the beating heart of a Northern Irish community – the local pub of a GoT filming location.
Anticipation grew as influencers shared updates with their communities, and speculated where the next doors would appear. Fans learned about the filming locations, explored the designs in detail, deciphered their hidden meanings, and of course, planned trips.
Together they form a pub-crawl through season 6 that circles the country.
What began as a tragedy turned into the biggest positive PR story of season 6, and a worldwide celebration of Northern Ireland’s links with the most popular TV show of
Execution
To create the stunning doors, world-class illustrators watched episodes as they aired, sketching out designs based on that week’s plot line in real time.
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, photographed and unveiled to the public, before the content was distributed to influencers and press.
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.
Northern Ireland has a perception problem. It’s turbulent past discourages visitors, and it struggles to sell itself to potential tourists. This campaign has shown that perceptions can be changed.
Tourism Ireland was welcomed into Game of Thrones fan culture. For 10 weeks, fans were actively seeking out our content.
The pub-crawl is now a pilgrimage for Game of Thrones fans around the world.
Three independent companies have set up tours of all 10 doors.
One of the pubs reported a trebling 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
The Situation
Our target audience, Game of Thrones fans, generate a phenomenal amount of content.
So to engage with this tightknit group and stand out from all the other media they produce, we had to add real value to their community.
However the show’s fans are notoriously wary of advertising. So we needed to produce content that would spread organically through their social channels, and get picked up by media they trusted. This included ‘super-fans’, bloggers, influencers, and certain mainstream networks.
The Strategy
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 generate so much content that anything we produced risked being drowned out, unless it became widely shared.
Our audience is also highly wary of advertising. So to get talked about, we knew we needed to add something of value to their tight-knit community.
We seeded the first door with the biggest super-fans and Game of Thrones influencers. The response from their followers was so overwhelming that the world’s biggest GoT blog created a permanent tab for our campaign on their homepage, completely free of charge.
And once the community picked it up, mainstream media weren’t far behind.