When HBO began planning for the final season of Game of Thrones (GoT), OREO saw an amazing opportunity for both brands.

OREO and GoT are cultural juggernauts. Both of these brands are incredibly powerful forces in popular culture, and we knew we could make magic happen by bringing them together. But our most important mandate was to find a way of bringing together these two very different brands in a way that felt authentic to both.

Influencers such as Saturday Night Live (SNL) star and GoT superfan Leslie Jones went wild for the collaboration, and outlets including SNL, Good Morning America, USA Today, Rolling Stone, Business Insider and Fast Company gave overwhelmingly positive coverage, which included detailed product descriptions, video content and clever OREO-fied twists on popular show quotes.

Craft + culture + rabid OREO cookie fans + rabid GoT fans = a once-in-a-lifetime collaborated product and film.

Each component of the OREO x Game of Thrones campaign is designed to highlight the most iconic elements of the two brands and combine them in a compelling way. First, we came up with the idea for a limited-edition product, with first-of-its kind packaging and custom-designed OREOs inside each pack. But we needed a way to tell the world about it, and that’s what led to the creation of the film.

Because we were thinking about bringing together the quintessential elements of both brands, the core idea for the film was clear: Recreate one of the most beloved opening credits sequences in television history with OREO’s iconic, visually striking and instantly recognizable cookies and creme.

The campaign is all about taking the most beloved, iconic elements from each, and presenting them together in a fresh and exciting way. The film is the embodiment of that sentiment.

Our strategy was to infuse the playfulness of OREO into the “epic-ness” of GoT to energize and capture both brands’ passionate fanbases. While both GoT and OREO are iconic brands, the two have very little in common on the surface. One is a dark and complex show filled with death, sex, war and revenge, while the other is a cookie, nostalgically popular in American culture for bringing people together with a twist, lick and dunk. We played with the tension between the two brands to create a product and animated film that is both unmistakably OREO and unmistakably Game of Thrones.

We knew the importance of authenticity in resonating with true fans, and chose to partner with the creators of the original GoT credits sequence to make sure we paid homage to the “real deal.” Every creative decision was made to stay true to the show’s original opening sequence.

OREO and HBO wanted to collaborate to commemorate the final season of Game of Thrones. Fans of the show are also fans of the opening credits, so we recreated this iconic portion of the show entirely out of OREO cookies—all in order to embed this unique partnership and create a cultural hit.

The credits serve as an overview of the geographical landscape of the Game of Thrones ‘world,’ and even change to reflect the themes of each particular episode. Borrowing from this trope, we focused on the remaining four kingdoms vying for the throne, and created custom cookie embossments to reflect each remaining house sigil and hid them as Easter eggs throughout the film.

Our intent was to be as precise and detail-oriented as the actual credit sequences are, so we partnered with the creators of the original show credits to create a CG world in a stop-motion style. They created a 3D model of the Oreo Cookie and then used that to build a CG world that felt real, as if it were built practically. We also secured the rights to the original Game of Thrones music to make the final piece authentic.

The film ran across social platforms and a broadcast version ran on CBS during the Final Four College Basketball playoffs. On social the film spearheaded a campaign where the brand asked fans to ‘Pledge For the Throne,’ by pledging fealty to one of the remaining house sigils.

Both brands are cultural juggernauts. Game of Thrones is a phenomenon that kept audiences begging for more season after season. And OREO is an iconic brand for the masses who’s heritage is undeniable.

Craft + culture + rabid OREO cookies fans + rabid Game of Thrones fans allowed us to create a once-in-a-lifetime piece of breakthrough content.

Although the campaign launched just prior to the Cannes deadline, in only one week from launch OREO and Game of Thrones fans and press went wild for the film and product.

We garnered 2,000+ press placements, with a cumulative 341MM impressions (unique viewers per day).

Most importantly, the product sold. We had 3.8MM packages ready for sale the day after the video launched. In one week, sales of GoT OREO outsold all other OREO products, including original OREO – the first time a limited edition has outsold the core product. Sales also outperformed the first week of all other past OREO limited-edition releases in the last five years. The product had an astounding 27% sold. That’s more than double the typical rate of sales for limited-edition products (average is 10% sold in first week). Total OREO brand sales were up 30%, with GoT OREO sales responsible for 40% of that.