Thursday, June 6, 2013

Social Media Spoilers as a Marketing Tool : Lesson from Game of Thrones Red Wedding

I had this in mind while doing a project on "Marketing TV content in the Smart TV" era. But realized the full potential only when the fans who hasn't watched the episode were reacting angrily over fans who posted spoilers of what it seemed the best episode of Game of Thrones so far.



A major plot twist happens in the 9th Episode of the current Game of Thrones 3rd season. The HBO telecast for U.S. is on Sundays 9:00 pm which is around 6.30-7am here in Sri Lanka. Few gets to watch it in the morning in Sri Lanka but the fans in US and Europe started posting comments, sharing memes about the brutal episode on Facebook, Twitter and every other place. Few reactions given below (Infact my blogpost was triggereby Himalkks below tweet)

This started angry reactions from those who haven't seen. And even by Thursday there was a conflict between those who have seen the episode vs those who still have not .
Many TV shows are badly effected by online piracy. Revenue lost because of pirates are massive in numbers. What im proposing is for TV show/movie producers to use social media spoilers strategically to
increase sales from revenue generating channels such as free to air TV, TV apps or Cable TV by helping  reduce online piracy of motion picture entertainment content. More hype - More people watch on TV!



If you have examined carefully, you would have noticed HBO and AMC are actively promoting their TV shows posting spoilers immediately after the shows. Once they post on their social media profiles - Even those who have seen the episodes are encouraged to share. This goes viral, increasing viewers by making the viewers feel left out till they watch what happens. One of my colleagues who watches GoT in the weekend was compelled to watch the show day after because of the red wedding hype containing lot of spoilers.

Do you think "spoilers" can be used to make more money for producers? Feel free to leave your comments below...