Overview & Business Case

In 2024, Warner Bros. Discovery identified an untapped opportunity to bridge two of its most valuable ecosystems—streaming entertainment and interactive gaming. The initiative began with a cross-promotional experiment between HBO Max and WB Games, designed to explore how shared franchises could deepen audience engagement across platforms.

The first activation paired Game of Thrones: Conquest, a popular mobile strategy game, with the premiere of House of the Dragon Season 2. The concept was simple yet powerful: allow fans who were already immersed in the Game of Thrones world on Max to extend their experience through gameplay, unlocking exclusive in-game rewards and continuing their fandom beyond the screen.

From a business perspective, the program aimed to create a reciprocal value exchange. For HBO Max, it provided a new way to keep high-value franchise fans engaged between show releases. For WB Games, it opened a fresh acquisition channel by reaching a qualified audience already emotionally invested in the IP. This cross-sell experiment served as a test case to prove whether entertainment ecosystems could mutually drive growth and retention through integrated storytelling experiences.

Task & Solution

The task was to design and implement a new cross-sell mechanism within HBO Max that could introduce relevant WB Games titles directly to streaming audiences. The solution took shape as a short, targeted pre-roll bumper—an 8- to 15-second promo shown before Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon Season 2 episodes. Each bumper featured a QR code that allowed viewers to scan and instantly access the Game of Thrones: Conquest game.

To achieve this, the team built new functionality into the Max platform enabling pre-rolls to be contextually matched to specific titles and controlled by flexible frequency caps, ensuring each viewer saw the promo only once—regardless of device or platform. Multiple creative variations were developed to test optimal QR code placement, timing, and call-to-action design.

When scanned, the QR code directed users to either a dedicated landing page or directly to the App Store, allowing A/B testing of both experiences to determine which best converted viewers into players.

Measurement required close coordination between the HBO Max and WB Games organizations. While the Max team managed impressions, reach, and scan tracking, the Games team modeled installs and customer lifetime value (CLTV) using their marketing-mix-modeling framework.

This project marked the first time HBO Max deployed a dynamic, franchise-specific pre-roll for gaming integration—paving the way for future cross-divisional campaigns designed to connect storytelling and gameplay in a seamless ecosystem.

Results

Within the first year of launch, the Game of Thrones: Conquest cross-promotion became one of the most successful franchise integrations on HBO Max. The campaign drove over 250,000 game installs in 2024, translating to more than $25 million in projected two-year CLTV revenue. Among users sourced from the HBO Max streaming audience, the free-to-paid conversion rate outperformed the average user segment by 10%, signaling that franchise alignment between Game of Thrones content and gameplay drove meaningful engagement and higher-value players.

While the QR scan rate remained modest at 0.02%, performance data confirmed the tactic had no negative impact on streaming engagement or completion rates—a key validation that promotional moments can coexist within premium content without disrupting the viewing experience.

The key learning: when there is a clear franchise match between the IP of the show and the game, cross-promotion becomes not only additive for user engagement but materially valuable for both divisions—creating a blueprint for future connected-entertainment campaigns.