Earlier this summer, New Yorkers may have spotted a 270-foot dragon encircling the top of the Empire State Building. No, it wasn’t a spin-off of King Kong. Instead, the idea was cooked up by another member of the Warner Bros. family: Max.
“In one of our brainstorms, somebody threw out, ‘Wouldn’t it be crazy if we put a dragon up there?’” Pia Barlow, EVP of originals marketing for HBO and Max, told us.
The dragon, which Barlow said took between 10 and 12 hours to install over the span of several days, was one of the highest-profile marketing stunts yet to promote the second season of House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones spin-off series that has seen its Season 2 audience steadily increase since the first episode aired on June 16, which was Max’s best streaming day ever. The season’s fourth episode, which aired on Sunday, attracted 8.1 million viewers on linear and streaming, a season high.
The Empire State Building’s short-term resident was meant to represent Team Green, or the supporters of Alicent Hightower and her son Aegon II Targaryen, one side of the civil war taking place in Westeros during the second season. Max centered its campaign for the show’s second season around the idea of taking sides in the civil war, with landmarks around the world declaring their support for Team Green or rival Team Black (supporters of Rhaenyra Targaryen and her claim to the throne).
It took about six to eight months from the time the idea was pitched to the dragon being installed, and the overall marketing campaign for House of the Dragon Season 2 was 18 months in the making, according to Barlow, who, at the beginning of the season at least, considered herself to be a supporter of Team Black.
Get marketing news you'll actually want to read
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.
Ahead of the season premiere, physical Team Green and Team Black banners showed up at New York City landmarks like the New York Stock Exchange and Rockefeller Center. Max also worked with local restaurants like Murray’s Bagels, Leon’s Bagels, John’s of Bleecker Street, and Roberta’s to offer menu items inspired by the show—like a bright green “Bacon, Aegon, & Cheese” at Leon’s—and hand out plenty of promotional hats.
“There’s always that debate happening with New Yorkers around who makes the best bagels [and] who makes the best pizza,” Barlow said. “What’s been so fun about this platform of Green versus Black is that it sets up the rivalry in a very fun, creative way that we can extend across food, institutions, sports teams.”
For audiences outside of New York, Max created CGI banner activations that featured landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands. The stunts “blurred the lines between physical and digital” and were designed to make people question which ones were real to generate conversation, Barlow told Marketing Brew.
While Barlow declined to share the marketing spend for Season 2’s promotion, it could be a pretty penny: The first season’s promotional budget exceeded $100 million, according to Deadline. And rest assured there will be more marketing in the future: the series has already been renewed for Season 3.