Publicis London: Game of Thrones, the tapestry version

The launch of Game of Thrones season 7 is going to be remembered in the immediate future for Ed Sheeran’s performance – or rather, the fracas that followed it.

And that’s a shame, because Publicis London has been doing a uniquely fantastic job for Tourism Ireland of promoting Game of Thrones territory (Northern Ireland) to millions of fans and potential visitors.

The new campaign by Publicis, in partnership with HBO, is built around a giant, 77-metre long, Bayeux-style tapestry, which tells the story so far from season 1 to season 6, giving fans a chance to re-visit all the key events which led to the season 7 premiere. The trials and tribulations of the show’s characters and the show’s most epic and famous scenes are depicted, exactly was they would have been in the tapestries of long ago.

The tapestry is being woven from one huge piece of linen, supplied by Thomas Ferguson’s in Banbridge, one of the last surviving linen mills in Northern Ireland.

Beginning from the launch of season 7, new sections of the tapestry are being revealed each week in the build-up to the next episode, capturing key events from the previous week.

Tourism Ireland is sharing these new sections via social media – using a mix of cinemagraphs, time-lapse videos of the weaving process, carousels and Instagram Stories.

Each element of the campaign will direct people to a special section on Tourism Ireland’s international website, Ireland.com – where an interactive Northern Ireland Game of Thrones Tapestry web app will allow fans to zoom in, section by section (the tapestry is catalogued by characters, geography, iconic battles and traditions of the seven kingdoms) to explore the tapestry in full.

Fans can use the app to share those scenes with their friends via social media, can link to pages showing where they were filmed in Northern Ireland and start to build an itinerary for their holiday to Northern Ireland.

The campaign kicked off on Monday, July 17, across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube in ten markets – including Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.

Tourism Ireland will also target its own social fan base, posting and tweeting to its 4 million Facebook fans and more than 403,000 followers on Twitter globally.

The new campaign will build on Publicis London’s earlier Game of Doors campaigns, which have accumulated more than 30 awards, including three Lions. The 2016 Doors of Thrones campaign reached an estimated 126 million people around the world and its various short films were viewed 17 million times.