The Spin is a die-hard Game of Thrones (and House of the Dragon) fan and – believe it or not – has watched the series more than seven times.
So, when HBO and House of the Dragon brought their limited-time activations to New York City in June, The Spin was genuinely excited. We scanned photographs of people sitting on the Iron Throne, watched CGI videos of banners declaring house allegiances (opportunities we had in the region, as well), and drooled over a score of customised GoT F&B options across the city.
Well, that lasted all of 15 minutes, until the photograph of a large blob of green sloppy goo wrapped around the Empire State Building surfaced.
The Spin’s first reaction was: “Is that CGI?” Once we figured out that it wasn’t, it took a good 10 minutes to figure out that the out-of-home activation was meant to be Vhagar – an actual inflatable balloon installation of the dragon.
The following five minutes were spent attempting to differentiate its head and wings from its tail.
While The Spin does appreciate the effort spent on the larger than life dragon, here’s a tip: maybe, next time, HBO could take a leaf out of Dubai’s books and have a swarm of drones take the form of a dragon to light up the night sky around the skyscraper rather than have a dragon quite literally clinging on for dear life, clutching a building’s spire 102-storeys above midtown Manhattan.
Consumers not going “Whee”
What happens when a brand is not marketed across the Middle East?
Weeks after TikTok ‘quietly’ launched Whee – an Instagram-esque social media app to share photos with friends – barely anyone knew it existed, with less than five-digit downloads across the entire region.
While the TikTok app touts 547,000 ratings on the App Store, averaging 4.7 out of 5, its latest app Whee had two ratings after thousands of downloads, with one user going as far as to say, “So ur telling me that I can only see my friends posts. WHICH IS EMPTY” (sic). The Spin did reach out to TikTok for a comment, but did not receive a response.
When strategy fails
The Spin took a ride down Sheikh Zayed road and turned off into Bur Dubai, because it found a transport van that asked: “Are you following us? (on social media)”.
At first glance, it seemed cheeky and catchy, until The Spin realised that it was a great call to action without any way to actually action it.
There was no QR code, no URL, no company name behind the van – and although the social media icons (cue Larry the Bird, who has flown the coop) were printed loud and clear, there really was no way to ‘follow’ the van from the physical into the virtual world.
As The Spin has stated before, creativity for the sake of it doesn’t always result in ‘creative effectiveness’. Time to go back to the drawing board.
