How Russian companies made money on "Game of Thrones": Valyrian and sausage courses from bastard
"Game of Thrones", without exaggeration, is one of the most popular and sought-after TV series of the decade. The last episode of the cult fantasy alone was watched by a record number of viewers — 19.3 million people. And these are only legal views. The excitement on torrent trackers and "pirate" sites was no less.
Naturally, the business could not miss the opportunity to earn millions on everyone's favorite show. So, in the restaurant chain Shake Shack burger "Dragaris" appeared, the manufacturer Diageo renamed Johnnie Walker whiskey into White Walker — "White Walker", and the confectionery brand Oreo used a screensaver from "Game of Thrones" to advertise its cookies.
But do not think that American entrepreneurs are "so bad, they profit from poor fans." Our compatriots also distinguished themselves in the battle for the throne of customers. How exactly, read below.
Cuisine of the Seven Kingdoms
The project "Kitchen in the district" together with the food delivery service Delivery Club have developed a special menu for fans of "Game of Thrones". Thanks to this, everyone can taste "Sausage from the bastard", "Pears in wine from a spacious garden", "Cocktail behind the wall", "Mushrooms for half-men", "Stew from fish eaters", "Northern breakfast" and other interesting dishes.
All recipes are taken from George Martin's books and are based on the series. Kirill Rodin, one of the leaders of the Kitchen in the District, admits that the idea to launch such a project came to him after a meme appeared on the Internet, where Ramsey Bolton holds a sausage in his hand.
During the month of the project, the Delivery Club received about 1,000 orders for "dishes of the Seven Kingdoms" and 30% from new users. In addition, many online publications have written about the innovation, and the famous food blogger Max Brandt even devoted the issue to a review of these dishes. As a result, the "Kitchen in the area" and the Delivery Club got exactly what they wanted — good PR and the arrival of new customers.
Learning Valyrian
If you don't know, then the language spoken by the characters of "Game of Thrones" is not just a random set of fictional words. Especially for the filming of the series by linguist David J. Peterson developed two new languages — Dothraki and Valyrian.
Educa, a Russian online platform specializing in teaching foreign languages, decided that it would be nice to add Valyrian to its database. This is the same language in which Arya Stark greeted the Faceless (Valar morghulis), and Daenerys ordered dragons to breathe fire (Dracarys!).
The course on the study of Valyrian was collected based on Peterson's notes and the few appearances of statements in this language in the series. As a result, it turned out to create 10 lessons and only in May 2019, 6 thousand people passed them. In total, during the existence of the course, tens of thousands of users managed to familiarize themselves with it! In 2017, the number of people who visited the corresponding section on the site was 10,000, in 2019 it increased to 19,000.
By the way, the Valyrian study rates are much higher outside of Russia. More than 900 thousand people have successfully completed a similar course on the Duolingo platform.
Merch "Game of Thrones"
The largest Russian online store Ozon earns not only on sales of George Martin's books, but also on providing fans with other unique products related to the "Game of Thrones". The site buys all thematic products from the Italian manufacturer of the Moleskine office and the American toy manufacturing company Hasbro.
A representative of the Ozon press service said that on the day of the show of the final episode of the eighth season, sales of goods with the Game of Thrones merch increased almost 4 times. Notebooks with the coats of arms of various houses of Westeros were the most popular. In addition, fans of the series bought figurines of their favorite characters, flags, T-shirts, cups and much more.
Admit it, do you have any thing with the symbols of the "Game of Thrones"?
Taxi for residents of the Seven Kingdoms
Do you think that super—fast travel between the kingdoms of Westeros is one of the mistakes of the "Game of Thrones"? And what if the heroes of the series just used the services of Citymobil all this time? On the eve of the release of the final episode, the company became an official partner of Amediateka and launched the "Battle for the Throne" campaign. So, some addresses in Moscow received the names of locations of the Seven Kingdoms. For example, Ostankino became the "Tower of the Lord Commander", the zoo became the "Dragon Stone", and Lubyanka became the "Temple of the Many Faces".
The more the participant of the action took taxi rides, the higher his "title" became. And at the end of the campaign, the most "titled" persons received a ticket from Citymobil to watch the final episode of Game of Thrones at the RZD Arena stadium. Would you agree that this is a very good reward?
According to the estimates of the company's experts, about 15 thousand residents of Moscow and the Moscow region took part in the action. In total, 60 thousand trips were made during this period. Among the participants, only 12% were already active active customers of the service, the remaining 88% were new or "sleeping" customers who installed the application but did not use it.
Here's how Russian business makes money on your favorite TV series. And this is just a small part of the examples. Many brands simply use the symbols of the "Game of Thrones" to advertise their products, be it food or toilet paper…
Therefore, we can say that the companies described above have approached the issue with creativity.
And what other examples of "profit" on the fans of "Game of Thrones" have you met?
Keywords: Business | Game of thrones | Marketing | Advertising campaign | TV series