Yes, I know you were burned by the final season of Game of Thrones in which your favorite character did something so inexplicable that it ruined all seven seasons or preceding development to the point that you can hardly look again at a map of Westeros.

But Game of Thrones is back, in some way, at least, under a different guise, with the prequel 'House of the Dragon', which premiered on HBO this weekend.

And putting all past traumas aside, it could be great (George RR Martin claims that it is much more within the scope of his initial vision), and at any rate, we get to watch those astounding dragons on television once again.

Which is the new focus of the latest campaign on Snapchat, which allows Snap users to transform themselves into dragons through a variety of AR activations within the app's Lens tools.
Which looks kind of cool-but from a social marketing standpoint, even more interesting than this is this element of the latest HBO/Snap campaign:

"Snap and HBO Max have also teamed up with members of Snap's Lens Network around the world to create customized Landmarker AR experiences in their local markets. It's the first partnership of its kind by a brand with an extensive group of Lens Creators in a scaled global manner."
Perhaps for the first time, in large-scale launches or even for smaller brands that can now work with several creators across regions, Snap has enabled a new and global partnership in the form of a variety of Lens makers to enable new forms of localized engagement through these activations on the lenses.

"To power the campaign, HBO Max provided the Lens Creators with AR assets for each dragon for the new Landmarker Lenses. Each Lens Creator selected the Landmarker Lens location that was meaningful to them, adding a strong local flavor to this global campaign."

Here are the locations where the lenses will be available when the show airs:

Los Angeles – Venice Beach Grand Canals, by Francis Chen
Rio De Janeiro - Princess Isabel Statue, by Vitulo & Co
London - Tower Bridge, by Clara Bacou
Chennai - Sankagiri Fort, by RBKavin Studio
Mumbai - CST Station (IE Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus), by Mohnish Raut and Persica Picardo
Prague - Charles Bridge, by Inna Horobchuk
At the same time, the activations will evolve as the season progresses, with new dragons appearing on the show and also being integrated into the exhibitions.
It's a very different take on the typical Lens campaign approach where the more regional approach could help increase engagement and get even more Snap users engaged in the show.

Which, as mentioned, could be a hard sell-but then again, if the show is genuinely good, that could wash some of the bad taste left in fans' mouths after that awful Game of Thrones season finale.

And from a digital marketing perspective, it might indicate new ways of interaction with Snap's growing community of creators for building even more locally relevant, inclusive, and engaging experiences.

Over 250,000 Lens Creators have already built more than 2.5 million Lenses using the 'Lens Studio' AR creation tool from Snap. That's a lot of potential broader integrations through Snap campaigns.