Why is Game of Thrones participating in "dumb stunts" to promote the final season?

The Guardian

"HBO doesn’t really need to promote Game of Thrones," says Stuart Heritage. "It’s the world’s biggest television series, and this is the finale. It’s the grand culmination of an epic story the scale of which television has never before seen. Even if HBO’s promotional budget for Game of Thrones only ran to a single classified listing in a small town’s residential newsletter, you’d still know about it. We all would. And yet HBO apparently has money to spare, because it’s lobbing it around at all sorts of dumb stunts. If you watched the Super Bowl this weekend, you will be familiar with the Bud Light commercial that doubled as a horrifying off-brand Game of Thrones series announcement." It could've been worse, Heritage says, pointing to the Wall Street Journal's report that Game of Thrones almost teamed with Coca-Cola for a White Walker-themed ad. As part of a $20 million promotional drive, Game of Thrones is also planning a scavenger hunt, a blood drive and tattoo giveaways -- its Twitter account even got involved in a Twitter fight between Wendy's and Burger King. "In a way, this is fine," says Heritage. "We live in 2019, where we’re all waist-deep in viewing choices and shows have to resort to all manner of idiotic stunts just to cut through the noise. But this is Game of Thrones, for crying out loud. Everyone already knows what it is, and everyone refuses to shut up about it. Even when it isn’t on the air, people won’t stop talking about Game of Thrones...Game of Thrones doesn’t need to resort to these flopsweat-soaked marketing ploys." ALSO: Did the Bud Light ad cheapen the Game of Thrones brand?