Starbucks got billion dollars worth of free marketing from “Game of Thrones” – Starbucks look-alike cup

According to Stacy Jones, CEO of marketing company Hollywood Branded, Starbucks gained an estimated $2.3 billion in free advertising over the previous couple of days when a modern cup was noticed throughout a “Game of Thrones” episode — and it wasn’t even a Starbucks cup.

On Sunday, fans of HBO’s fantasy epic noticed one thing out of place throughout a feast scene. Photos and videos of the instant went microorganism on social media at intervals hours of the show airing.

The label is unclear, however, several fans speculated that it was the iconic green siren from the Starbucks logo. After all the speculation the cup turns up to be a craft services cup.

While the cup wasn’t intended as an advertisement, the news caught on fire and escalated on social media.

Social media analytics and observation platform Talkwalker counted over 193,000 mentions at intervals forty-eight hours that cited each Starbucks and “Game of Thrones,” or a variation of the series’ hashtag, on Twitter, in social forums, blogs and news sites.

Perhaps this is a once in a lifetime free marketing for any brands out there. Some brands even took this chance of exposure by creating their version of memes.

As of Tuesday, HBO had updated their episode and the cup is removed.