TORONTO – Corus Entertainment’s Movie Central has kicked off an eight week, multi-tiered marketing campaign in Western Canada to coincide with the start of he fourth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones.
The campaign launches with a targeted digital and social media campaign that focuses on the Game of Thrones premiere, which returns to HBO Canada on April 6 at 9:00 PM MT/ET. It will then shift to a six week image brand campaign for HBO Canada that leverages the network’s reputation for content excellence with series including True Detective, True Blood, Girls, and Boardwalk Empire in an effort to engage new subscribers.
The digital component of the campaign offers existing Game of Thrones fans exclusive content and prizing, and also includes enriched media ads and YouTube pre-roll videos customized for a multi-device interface with content previewing the new Game of Thrones season. After the season premiere, the enriched media ads and YouTube pre-roll videos will focus on an overall HBO Canada spot.
Other highlights of the campaign include the Western Canada launch of iRiS app Game of Thrones: Conquer the North. The app, developed in partnership with Bell Media’s The Movie Network, is available now on both iOS and Android. In addition, a targeted HBO Canada DVD sampler Direct Mail featuring the premiere episodes of seven of HBO’s hottest series, including Game of Thrones, Girls, Veep, Boardwalk Empire, will be delivered to non-subscribers with a direct call to action to subscribe, and a Facebook app contest will launch with weekly prizes.
The HBO Canada brand campaign will also include 30-second ads rolled out across conventional and national specialty networks; 10-30 second radio tags airing on stations across Western Canada; as well as support from local radio stations, which will give away HBO prize packs.
“The overall HBO Canada brand campaign will showcase our successful slate of notable series and underscore the value of a subscription to Movie Central”, said Maria Hale, Corus’ VP, head of content distribution & pay TV, in the news release. “Our goal is to spotlight the extraordinary calibre, depth and breadth of HBO Canada programming to appeal to new subscribers.”
