Friday, March 10, 2017

Social Media Marketing Campaigns Gone Bad Can Still Be Good

On Thursday afternoon, more than 150,000 HBO "Game of Thrones" Fans enthusiastically watch a block of ice melt on Facebook Live.  Using 360i, a block of ice was supposed to melt on camera to reveal the debut date of Season 7.  Fans were guided to comment with the word "fire" which was then supposed to activate a flamethrower to make the ice melt more quickly.  But 10 1/2 minutes in, the broadcast froze... which enraged viewers, but didn't stop them from watching.  Even better, the glitch itself made the event even more newsworthy and ended up getting a large amount of earned media coverage.

I was greatly intrigued by the examples we saw in our last class of interactive social media campaigns.  But as someone who has spent their entire career in the broadcast sector, genuinely wondered about all the technical risks involved in such campaigns.  This HBO example answered my question... it doesn't matter if it fails, it still works. 

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