R.I.P. Bud Knight.
The mascot of Bud Light met an early demise in the beer company’s 60-second Super Bowl commercial, thanks to Game of Thrones’s The Mountain, and this may be the biggest partnership of the decade.
The spot combined HBO’s Game of Thrones with Bud Light for a jousting match, which saw The Mountain crush Bud Knight’s skull just like Oberyn Martell’s (noooooooo) before one of Daenerys’s dragons flies overhead to scorch the entire arena.
The ad, which served as both a promo for GoT’s final season and *major* brand alignment for the preferred beverage of frat boys everywhere, cost a whopping $20 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. David Nutter, who directed the “Red Wedding” episode, lended his directing expertise to the ad.
HBO “wanted to surprise the roughly 100 million people expected to tune in to Super Bowl and turn an ad for another brand into a show promo,” the Wall Street Journal article notes.
All that’s left to say: Dilly, dilly! (And we’re going to need plenty of Bud Light come April 14…70 days, y’all!)
