Tourism Ireland is celebrating this week after its Game of Thrones campaign won two awards – a gold and a silver – at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on the French Riviera.
The Cannes Lions awards are seen as the Oscars of the advertising and marketing world, and Tourism Ireland was awarded a Gold Lion for ‘Outdoor – Special Build’ out of 20 campaigns shortlisted for the particular category, including Nike, Microsoft and Heineken. Tourism Ireland also took the Silver Lion for ‘Use of Ambient Outdoor’. The festival organisers announced this week that a total of 41,170 award entries had been received, across 24 different Lions categories.
It’s not the first prize for the Door of Thrones campaign, which has picked up 3- prizes in Europe and the US.
Tourism Ireland’s Game of Thrones campaign scooped two awards – a gold and a silver – at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France
Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said: “Winning a Cannes Lion is the ultimate industry accolade, so we’re really proud that our ‘Doors of Thrones’ campaign has been singled out for not one, but two, awards at this year’s Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. The international tourism marketplace is an extremely competitive one and we are constantly looking at innovative and engaging ways to reach potential holidaymakers, so we are particularly honoured to receive these awards.
“Tourism Ireland has been working hard to build awareness of Northern Ireland around the world and we were really pleased to continue our partnership with [show-makers] HBO last year.”
In January 2016, The Dark Hedges – the location which stands in for The Kingsroad in HBO’s Game of Thrones – was hit by Storm Gertrude, which levelled some of the trees. Over ten weeks, Tourism Ireland used the fallen wood to make ten doors, each depicting an episode from Game of Thrones season 6. Those doors are now hanging in pubs and other venues across the North, giving fans a new Game of Thrones trail to follow. The ‘Doors of Thrones’ campaign reached an estimated 126m people around the world, with the campaign’s short films being viewed 17m times – generating coverage worth about £11.3m.
