Volvo and Sky Atlantic

Volvo’s Branded Convoy Takes The ‘Iron Throne’ Across the UK’s 7 Kingdoms

Volvo’s partnership with Sky Media realised significant uplifts against brand awareness and its objectives to shift brand perceptions. Through its long-term sponsorship of Sky Atlantic, together with a bespoke branded content series and unique activations, Volvo exceeded its KPIs and increased its brand’s perceptions as “innovative and edgy” by 39% since the partnership began. Equally, through this partnership, the brand went on to become synonymous with the epic ‘Game of Thrones’ viewing experience.

With the surge of “winter is coming” memes and the imminent ‘Game of Thrones’ finale on everyone’s lips, Volvo wanted to be part of the conversation during this pinnacle moment in pop culture. They wanted to elevate their existing sponsorship and create a campaign, which would drive relevancy in an out-of-home space, whilst also generating leads for their Volvo XC60. Simultaneously, Sky Atlantic had big ideas of their own: to pull off the biggest mobile and national out of home activation ever for the series.

Robust, independent brand evaluation evidence has proven that activated sponsorships deliver incremental gains across brand health metrics. For example, a +25pp on ‘talkability’, +19pp on brand image, +15pp purchase consideration and +13pp brand knowledge was seen when viewers exposed to a sponsorship were compared to viewers exposed to an activated sponsorship.

Therefore, to make the sponsorship bigger and better, Volvo and Sky Atlantic wanted to engage fans in a multi-touchpoint activation, to reinforce TV viewing and dig deeper into the cultural conversation – across editorial, social, online and earned media. For Volvo, building an experiential campaign into their sponsorship would further embed the brand into this ground-breaking series and arise an opportunity to physically interact with the Volvo XC60.

Volvo, Sky Media, Sky Atlantic, The Production Factory (TPF) and Mindshare joined forces to co-ordinate a multi-city, fan event that would take the hottest seat to fans across the ‘real life Westeros’ and put Volvo in an out-of-home environment to generate even more buzz around the most popular show, ever. All hail the “7 Kingdoms’ Throne Tour”.

Three weeks prior to episode one airing, a convoy of seven branded Volvo XC60’s (akin to a moving billboard) transported the original throne across seven key UK cities, with high-footfall locations. This tour gave fans the unique opportunity to sit on the show’s hotly contested seat of power, the actual Iron Throne, and interact with the Volvo XC60. Kicking off in Dublin, home of the throne and first ever HBO filming location for the show, the convoy made guest appearances in Glasgow, Newcastle, Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham and concluded its cross-county roadshow in the capital, at London Kings Cross, for the premiere.

• The Iron Throne experience featured a shareable GIF mechanic designed to efficiently encourage social media engagement
• Digital screens on the stand featured promos / trailers for the new season to drive additional awareness for Sky Atlantic
• Free Sky Atlantic Game of Thrones Dragon Easter Eggs were given to all who sat on the Iron Throne

To enhance the activation, a ‘Thronecar’ competition gave fans a chance to win the Volvo XC60 and was promoted on the ‘Game of Thrones’ TV talk show ‘Thronecast’. The show’s host Jamie East (an avid fan of the show himself) quizzed viewers on Westeros-themed trivia and drove fans to battle it out via the custom-made microsite, managed by TPF.