‘Tentpolelevel Marketing: HBO Maxs Steven Cardwell On Promoting House Of The Dragon, Discovery+ Merger

The streaming wars can sometimes seem like our own version of Game of Thrones, with the world fighting for video supremacy. The latest booking is the new series "Dragon House," which HBO Max chief marketing officer Steven Cardwell described as the service's biggest campaign ever. (Although he did not disclose the cost, the marketing investment is nearly triple that of previous "Game of Thrones" episodes, which were reported by the media as more than $100 million.)

In addition to the usual ads on TV, social media, billboards and other online ads, the new series, which debuted last week, has several partnerships with DuoLingo and Snapchat, a new augmented reality app that allows users to chat in virtual reality. exercise. Check out the dragon and its rise in the series.

DigiDay sat down with Cardwell to discuss how show marketing has evolved, strategies for short-term marketing windows and the implications of the Discovery + merger.

How is marketing "Dragon House" different from the way you marketed previous seasons of "Game of Thrones"?

The world is very different compared to 2019. HBO Max was not there in the beginning. Knowing that HBO Max is a global platform, it was mainly an effort to make our campaign as wide and international as possible. Is this the benchmark against which we evaluate all our partnerships and promotions worldwide? Will it expand its audience outside the US? Although we know that Game of Thrones has many fans around the world, it wanted to bring them into the marketing campaign.

How?

Much has been done to make the AR applications we have developed, for example, globally accessible. Through our partnership with Snapchat, we are working with international creators to create unique tags around the world with the idea of ​​driving such a big global cultural moment in the scene. So it was nice to see that English didn't dominate the Twitter conversation this series.

I read that the marketing budget for "Dragon House" is bigger than any other season of "Game of Thrones". Why and how is this year different?

I can't say the exact amount for sure, but I can say it was the biggest campaign and it definitely delivered. It was the biggest premiere in HBO history, so the correlation is interesting to see, but the basics are the same. Now we break more of our perceptual habits. There is more flow and more competition for eyeballs, making it harder to create these great exclusives and traditional seasons. It only takes marquee level marketing to generate that interest and interest in the franchise.

Another part of it is Warner Bros. It's part of a new venture with Discovery and we can rely on new promotional levers we've never had access to before. As well as the entire Discovery Networks channel portfolio, as well as Warner Bros. All of Discovery's famous brands, too, from "Friends" to "American Dad" to Elite Wrestling. That's a pretty big laundry list.

In an earnings call earlier this month, executives said trading windows are shorter these days. How is advertising changing?

With this campaign we are following a more traditional theatrical model... In this world, the signal to consumers is that a big event is coming and to get there requires a very well coordinated structure - and one. long tail, where you put breadcrumbs. Must start.

As with other campaigns, there is a lot going on and running it all for a year and a half will drive most consumers crazy. When people hear something, they want to act immediately and go see it. A sleazy comedy doesn't campaign that long, but I don't know if there's anything new in that genre. He was almost like a traditional screen pole model movie Her. … It's not something you can put together for two weeks.

How has the new plan to combine HBOMax and Discovery+ changed your marketing strategy for various shows? Last week I watched newscasts of dozens of shows, including many originals.

We're still trying to figure it all out. "Dragon House" is a good example, where we can stay as far away as possible and take advantage of all the channels we have. There are many more opportunities for that crossover potential. [Warner Bros. As President/CEO David Zaslav] said on the earnings call, we want to create quality content.

And with that, if there's less stuff on stage, we can invest more in the things that drive the audience, like the cultural articulation of these big moments. The investment in "Dragon House" was therefore huge: this marketing concept matches the size and dimension of these products, which are creative, large and premium as fans have come to expect from their range. .

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