Has the Game of Thrones coffee cup made Starbucks ‘tens of millions’ in publicity?
- Product placement expert estimates that the total audience discussing the matter is more than 100 million people
Starbucks did not pay for one of its iconic coffee cups to be surreptitiously left in a scene of Game of Thrones.
On Monday, HBO confirmed that the rogue coffee spotted in a scene of the eighth season’s fourth episode, “The Last of the Starks”, was from the set’s craft services, which serves drinks and food to the cast and crew.
The television network joked that the latte that appeared on the episode was a mistake: “Daenerys had ordered a herbal tea”.
However, the cardboard takeaway cup has become so synonymous with the Seattle-based coffee chain that everyone just [wrongly] assumed that it was theirs.
The scale of the fantasy series and the viral nature of the anachronistic cup are such that experts say Starbucks has earned millions in free publicity.
Stacy Jones, the CEO of the marketing agency Hollywood Branded, which specialises in product placement, said Starbucks would have had to pay from US$250,000 to US$1 million for one of its containers to be gratuitously left in front of the Mother of Dragons.
“If we were looking at this in the grand scheme of things and we were comparing Game of Thrones to the other largest-watched content out there … you’re looking at the US$250,000 to US$1 million range for product placement where that product was positioned with a very central character,” Jones said.
However, she stipulated that HBO “doesn’t take dollars” from advertisers in its content because its customers are paying for an ad-free experience: “They [HBO] believe their audience should not pay for their content as well as have brands feature that are paying to be in their content.”
