MOUNTAIN DEW is a brand with high awareness, although it has lost grasp of the cultural cachet it had enjoyed in prior decades. A crowded consumer market, changing consumption habits and a plethora of competitive options made connecting with brand advocates harder than ever.

Our challenge was to re-engage not only our biggest fans (affectionately known as DEW Nation) and get them to rally behind the brand once again, but also regain our foothold as a national cultural icon. We knew from our research that much of DEW Nation were also huge Game of Thrones fans and had drawn connections between the brand and the show, bringing to light a potential collaboration that seemed destined from the beginning. Our end goal was to win the people over and earn our place in the zeitgeist.

With the final season of Game of Thrones fast approaching, there was an opportunity to re-establish DEW’s cultural relevance, and so we did what needed to be done #ForTheThrone.

In the face of declining television viewership and splintering attention spans, there are few shows that still call for “appointment viewing” en masse. After a long 2-year hiatus, Game of Thrones was finally returning and #ForTheThrone was beginning to trend. Thrones fans were not just passionate but thirsty for content – its Season 8 trailer shattered HBO records, racking up 81 million views in the 24 hours after its release. And our shared fanbase had already been engaging in conversation long before the Season 8 trailer dropped.

By digging into social conversation, we discovered chatter around DEW and Wildfire (a powerful substance from the show) being the same color, fan theories regarding a lead actor’s appearance in DEW’s 2018 Super Bowl ad, even a replica of the Iron Throne forged of DEW bottles – a foreshadowing of a partnership seemed written in the stars.

Much like the warring characters in the show vying #ForTheThrone, MOUNTAIN DEW brought together its brain power, creative forces and agency allies to devise a battle plan that would make Thrones author, George RR Martin, proud. The idea that show central characters sacrificed everything they knew and loved #ForTheThrone, inspired us to do the same.

When HBO asked MOUNTAIN DEW what it was willing to sacrifice in partnership for the final season of Game of Thrones, the brand embraced the challenge and plotted a step-by-step approach #ForTheThrone.

We knew that to stand out amidst the rampant cultural conversation surrounding Game of Thrones, we would need to pay homage to the story and execute a campaign that would excite both DEW Nation and Throners alike.

We were inspired by the character of Arya Stark, once known in the story as “A Girl Has No Name,” who gave up her identity to become no one.

MOUNTAIN DEW would sacrifice all it had in its arsenal including its iconic green color, design, social channels, media and talent partnerships. Following in the footsteps of Arya Stark, DEW would also give up its identity to become no one, ultimately transforming itself to “A Can Has No Name”.

DEW dominated conversations through all of its efforts:

-Amassed over 4.3 BN earned impressions (of which 4BN were earned)

-Delivered a 512% increase (or 6x) the Twitter conversation following the campaign vs. previous weeks

DEW sparked demand for “A Can Has No Name”:

-Within the 40-hour window, we received over 88,000 requests for “A Can Has No Name”, or one request every two seconds

-The free cans were being auctioned off on eBay for up to $300 for a single can

-Thousands of fans showed up to events in NYC and LA, going through an intricate process just to get their hands on a can

The DEW and Game of Thrones partnership was in fact destined to be:

-On Facebook, message association between DEWand Game of Thrones was 4.9x higher than CPG norms, while favorability scored 4.7x higher than CPG norms

And that’s how you do#ForTheThrone

MOUNTAIN DEW is a $4.3Bn brand, driven solely by its identity in culture and on shelf. The idea of sacrificing this #ForTheThrone posed a massive risk.

Game of Thrones (which airs on HBO) is considered by many to be the most influential TV shows of all time, breaking viewership records season over season, and has permeated popular culture worldwide. It is based on George R.R. Martin's best-selling book series "A Song of Ice and Fire" and on April, 14th 2019 launch its final season.

Much of the groundwork for the campaign strategy involved studying deep subreddits and fan fiction that depicted MOUNTAIN DEW through the lens of the Game of Thrones universe. The parallels between the story of Arya Stark, an innocent girl turned assassin, and MOUNTAIN DEW, a brand with a heritage of being a badass, was too strong to ignore.