Game of Thrones brings viewers to HBO Now, but their loyalty is fleeting
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It’s that time of year again: HBO’s helping Americans get Medieval on their water cooler conversations with the premier of the newest Game of Thrones season. (SPOILER ALERT) New data from Slice Intelligence shows that April’s trial memberships for HBO Now increased by 383 percent when compared to the beginning of the year, and that 49 percent of April trial sign-ups occurred on the premier of Game of Throne’s sixth season.
When you start a trial of HBO Now, you watch GOT and unsubscribe
Slice Intelligence found that nearly half of the people who signed up for a trial of HBO Now between April and June 2015 didn’t become a subscriber. Among those that did, 20 percent unsubscribed as soon as Game of Thrones was over. For the viewers who pledged their loyalty with a subscription, only 11 percent still pay their allegiance to HBO Now.
Merchandise sales are truly a song of ice and fire
While the battle for the iron throne hasn’t favored the Starks and Targaryens, data shows that these two houses are winning the online merchandise war. In the last two years, 43 percent of online Game of Thrones toys and apparel purchased were on House Stark items. Roughly one-third of the items purchased are Targaryen-themed.
When we look at the most popular characters, we see that 34 percent Game of Thrones of toys and apparel items sold online are Daenerys, the Mother of Dragons, themed. While Jon Snow might know nothing, but he is the second most popular character in terms of the series' merchandise sales.
About this data
With a panel of over 4 million online shoppers, Slice Intelligence gives the most detailed, and accurate digital commerce data available, and is reported daily.
Slice Intelligence is the only service to measure digital commerce directly from the consumer, across all retailers, at the item level, and over time. Our retailer-independent methodology precisely measures commerce as it happens. By extracting detailed information from hundreds of millions of aggregated and anonymized e-receipts, Slice can map the entire Purchase Graph, connecting each and every consumer to all their purchases.
Slice gets its data from e-receipts – not a browser, app or software installed by the end-user – so its measurement reflects comprehensive shopping behavior across multiple devices, over time which are key in an increasingly omnichannel retail world.