Fire up Roku this weekend, and you'll receive full-court promotional pressure, with what the streaming company said are the active hands and legs of more than 100 of its marketing staffers, D'-ing you up right off the remote dribble, letting you know that House of the Dragon, the prequel to HBO's most popular original series ever, Game of Thrones, premieres Sunday on HBO Max.
Roku's platform-wide, immersive promotional experience even includes a specially produced episode of streaming company's program-recommendation-themed original show, The Roku Rundown. (You can see a clip here.)
Also read: Panic Grips the Video Business! -- Are the 'Shark Week' Guys Really About to Blow Up HBO Max?
Meanwhile, Comcast has set up a House of the Dragon-themed "super fan destination" for users of its X1 and Flex video platforms. The curated landing spot will give all Xfinity customers access to 16 Game of Thrones episodes "that showcase the greatest moments from House Targaryen," as well as the full first season of Games of Thrones.
While HBO's distribution partners this week have sent Next TV breathless emails detailing these marketing efforts, the programmer itself, along with its newly combined parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, has sent us just one press release in the past couple of days pertaining to House of the Dragon.
It was a simple blast that included a YouTube link to the promo trailer:
Notably, in the run-up last month to Discovery's big tentpole summer nonfiction programming event "Shark Week" (July 24-30), we received numerous email come-ons, including a reminder for "National Shark Appreciation Day."
Now, we're not implying that while it mulls who and what stays and who and what goes amid its well-discussed plan to combine HBO Max and Discovery Plus, the Warner Bros. Discovery management team has, under the control of longtime "Shark Week" shot caller David Zaslav, suddenly forgotten that the Game of Thrones finale delivered an NFL Playoffs-like 19.3 million viewers when it ran in May 2019. \
During WBD's second-quarter earnings report on August 4, Zaslav called the marketing campaign behind House of the Dragon the company's biggest ever.
And July was a somewhat active month for House of the Dragon announcements , with WBD touting an official trailer, an "immersive fan experience" and the Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon podcasts, featuring interviews with series creator George R. R. Martin.
Certainly, Zaslav and team know it's a big deal -- after all, it was the three-minute House of the Dragon trailer that commanded the most searches among "Shark Week" viewers last month, according to analytics company EDO.
