Author’s note: Warning! This article contains some Game of Thrones spoilers.
Brace yourselves, San Diego. Comic-Con is coming.
Whether you’re a visitor to our beautiful city or a local dreading the imminent Gaslamp traffic, you probably noticed that San Diego’s Gaslamp district is slowly transforming into a media planner’s dream. Storefronts will begin transforming into headquarters for various TV shows, MTS is prepping for the surge of riders, and travelers will be picking up their checked luggage from branded baggage claim carousels (more on this, soon). Yep, it’s that time of the year.
Speaking of baggage claim carousels, if you’re planning to fly into San Diego for Comic-Con, you may notice some changes to the airport. No, I’m not talking about the addition of Stone Brewing Co. to Terminal 2. To welcome Comic-Con attendees to San Diego, the TNT network has taken over much of the real estate of San Diego International Airport with images and various messaging to drum up interest in their upcoming drama series, “Legends.” Before even reaching the San Diego Convention Center for Comic-Con, Comic-Con attendees (and other random travelers) will be hit with highly visible ads for the show. Now that’s stepping outside the Gaslamp box to reach audiences faster.
And for all you Sean Bean fans, your wait for his return to the screen is over (I know I wasn’t the only person upset over Ned Stark’s headache of a demise – pun intended). Sean Bean exercises his superb acting talents as the show’s lead character, Martin Odum, an undercover FBI agent. And as many fans of Sean Bean know, his characters’ lives are always cut much too short (more than 20 times!). With this widely known fact, TNT has started a #DontKillSeanBean social media campaign, encouraging fans to tweet using this specific hashtag to help begin conversations around the show. There’s already a Tumblr site, poking fun at the deaths of Sean Bean’s characters. It’s safe to assume that the marketers behind the #DontKillSeanBean campaign have some additional digital tricks up their sleeves come Comic-Con.
Whether this show is successful or not, looks like the network did a bit of research on their target audience and is cleverly optimizing on the interests of fans and hoping that supporters of Sean Bean will support the show as well. So far, the hashtag campaign is going fairly well. I know… valar morghulis (“all men must die” in High Valyrian, for non-GoT fans), but I’d like to see Sean Bean survive for a good while this time. LONG LIVE SEAN BEAN!
What has been your favorite marketing campaign during San Diego Comic-Con? Tell us on our Facebook page or tweet us!
