HBO’s Three Part Campaign to Hype the Last Season

The 8^th and final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones is set to premiere on April 14^th.  Filming for the last season officially began on October 23^rd, 2017 and concluded in July 2018.  Needless to say, they’ve spent some considerable time on the final season of what is (in my humble opinion) one of the best shows in history, so far at least.  The show really doesn’t need the hype help but HBO nevertheless has been rolling out some various campaigns to get the word out about the new seasons much anticipated arrival. This kind of stuff is for sure my jam you guys! It reminds me of the kind of stuff done to hype a new movie coming out back in the day, like at the London premiere of The Exorcist, they had ambulances parked outside the theater for those patrons who just couldn’t handle the horror, or when in 2002 in order to promote the new Carrie movie, a Hollywood company set up a hidden camera inside a café and staged a girl moving items using only her mind….I’ve seen the video of this and unless all the patrons of the café are paid actors, they did a good job of freaking some folks out.  Anyway, the point is I really love this kind of stuff and I hope this practice of hype for shows and movies continues.  The point of me telling you that is that HBO has followed suite.  They partnered up with the American Red Cross for a Bleed for the Throne blood drive campaign encouraging fans to literally give blood in the name of the Iron Throne.  This kind of stuff is a pretty mainstream and well used type of hype campaign.  It’s common for a show or movie to team up with a cause/charity in order to hype a premiere or celebrate an anniversary, like when Breaking Bad actors Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul reunited for a Omaze competition to win a chance to cook breakfast with them in the show’s RV for the Kind Campaign (a non-profit which is focused on girl-against-girl bullying) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in exchange for charitable donations for the 10 year anniversary . I wish more shows and movie companies would do this.  In addition to the Bleed for the Throne campaign with the American Red Cross, HBO has taken another, somewhat non-conventional route to keeping the excitement up for the premiere of the shows last season.  You see, the team up with the American Red Cross is just the first part of their three part campaign encouraging fans to “Bleed, Quest, Create for the Throne”.  They started with the most common of moves in this type of hype game, which is to couple up with a charitable cause of some kind, using the show/movies popularity to help raise awareness for a cause or glean donations for a charity organization of some kind but they decided to have some fun and go old school with the other two parts of the campaign (that honestly the show doesn’t need, I mean don’t worry HBO, we’re all going to watching it). The “Quest” for the throne and “Create” for the throne, parts of the campaign have me wishing I were rich and a highly talented artist of some kind.  HBO has hidden 6 Iron Thrones around the world encouraging fans to “Quest” for the throne.  The first of the thrones shown here in this video appears to be in a forest of some kind and will be awarded to the first person to find it.  There is, however, a time limit on finding the throne.  There’s a clock with the countdown on the video so we know how long we have until it’s too late for the throne in the forest and time to movie on the throne #2.  Fun right?!?!?!?! So if I were rich I could travel around looking for the thrones but alas I am not, and I really don’t see HBO hiding a throne in the oil fields of west Texas.  The third part of the campaign, “Create” for the throne had artists create their own version of props from the show like Jaime’s golden hand, Daenerys’ Hand of the Queen pin and various other gems that you can find here.  I really liked the ice sculpture of  the Night King and the dragon eggs.

I think we should follow suite.  My friend Roy Shuck made a replica from his sweetie's favorite show for her for Christmas and lemme tell ya, I was IMPRESSED!

A few days ago HBO broke the silence on the rumors regarding show length and went ahead and put out the official run time for all six episodes in season 8 along with their air dates…..and here they are:

Season 8, episode 1

Debut date: SUNDAY, APRIL 14^TH AT 9:OO p.m. (ET/PT) Estimated run time: 54 minutes

Season 8, episode 2

Debut Date: SUNDAY, APRIL 21^ST AT 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT) Estimated run time: 58 minutes

Season 8, episode 3

Debut Date: SUNDAY, APRIL 28^TH  AT 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT) Estimated run time: 1:22 (an hour and 22 minutes)

Season 8, episode 4

Debut Date: SUNDAY, MAY 5^TH,  AT 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT) Estimated run time: 1:18 (an hour and 18 minutes)

Season 8, episode 5

Debut Date: SUNDAY, MAY 12^TH,  AT 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT) Estimated run time: 1:20 (an hour and 20 minutes)

Season 8, episode 6

Debut Date: SUNDAY, MAY 19^th,  AT 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT) Estimated run time: 1:20 (an hour and 20 minutes)