SodaStream's 2019 Say Goodbye To Single Use Plastic campaign starred three Game of Thrones actors to champion reusable sparkling water solutions across the
ARCHIVESodaStream Enlists Game of Thrones Stars to Fight Single-Use Plastic
SodaStream's "Say Goodbye To Single Use Plastic" campaign is a 2019 digital-first film released in the United States in May of that year, starring three Game of Thrones actors to dramatise everyday struggles with disposable plastic bottles and direct consumers toward reusable home-carbonation alternatives.
The campaign launched on May 15, 2019, according to PR Newswire UK, timed deliberately to coincide with the conclusion of Game of Thrones Season 8 — one of the most-watched television finales in recent memory. That timing was not incidental. SodaStream had cultivated a sustained creative relationship with cast members from the series, and this film represented the ninth collaboration with Game of Thrones talent over approximately three years, as documented on Ads of the World. Thor Bjornsson, known to audiences as The Mountain, Hannah Waddingham, recognised as Septa Unella, and Kristian Nairn, who portrayed Hodor, each appear in scenarios depicting the absurdity and inconvenience of single-use plastic dependence.
The campaign contains one primary media asset — a sixty-second film — supported by a twenty-one-second television cut deployed in secondary markets, as reported by Horizont At. In the United States, distribution centred on digital video channels, positioning the campaign squarely within a performance-oriented media strategy designed to reach audiences already engaged with the Game of Thrones cultural moment. The creative concept, as documented by adsoftheworld.com, frames three recognisable screen presences struggling with ordinary plastic bottle situations before presenting SodaStream's reusable system as the logical resolution. The campaign falls within the Food and Drink category and speaks directly to the Drinks Non-Alcoholic segment, where consumer interest in sustainability was already reshaping purchase behaviour across the US market.
SodaStream occupies a distinct position in the home-carbonation category. The brand is consistently identified as the global leader in home carbonation, with Drinkmate, Hamilton Beach, and Cuisinart representing substantial but smaller participants in the same space, according to growthmarketreports.com. That leadership status shaped the strategic logic of the 2019 campaign: rather than compete on product specifications, SodaStream competed on cultural relevance and environmental purpose.
The strategic rationale rested on two converging realities in the United States. First, the finale of Game of Thrones Season 8 created an unparalleled moment of shared cultural attention, giving a brand with an established cast relationship a credible reason to insert itself into that conversation. Second, environmental concern around single-use plastic was accelerating as a mainstream consumer issue. PepsiCo, which acquired SodaStream in 2018, stated in September 2019 that expanding the SodaStream platform could help avoid an estimated sixty-seven billion plastic bottles through 2025, according to pepsico.com — a projection that underscores the corporate-level commitment to sustainability that the campaign was designed to embody publicly.
The 2019 film was itself a remake of an existing 2017 SodaStream campaign, as noted by adsoftheworld.com, signalling that the brand was iterating on a proven creative formula rather than experimenting. SodaStream's strategic positioning had also shifted away from soda-making and toward sparkling water, as documented by pollackgroup.com, aligning the brand with a category that carries stronger health and environmental associations. In the United States, that repositioning placed SodaStream in direct conversation with the growing sparkling water segment, where consumer demand was rising and plastic packaging was an increasing flashpoint.
The film places three Game of Thrones actors in recognisably mundane situations involving single-use plastic bottles. The creative approach depends entirely on the contrast between the epic register audiences associate with these performers and the domestic banality of reaching for a disposable bottle — a tension that generates both humour and genuine persuasive force.
Thor Bjornsson, Hannah Waddingham, and Kristian Nairn each bring their established screen personas into the campaign's comic logic. Kristian Nairn, speaking at the time of the campaign's release, stated that as a fan of SodaStream and an advocate for the environment himself, he always welcomes an opportunity to help SodaStream spread its message, as quoted by PR Newswire UK. That personal investment from the talent lends the campaign a degree of authentic advocacy that distinguishes it from purely transactional celebrity endorsement.
The campaign's production format — a sixty-second hero film designed for digital-first distribution in the United States, accompanied by a truncated twenty-one-second cut for broadcast use in other markets, as reported by horizont.at — reflects a media architecture that privileges depth of engagement online while maintaining reach through shorter formats elsewhere. The decision to build the campaign around a single primary media asset, as documented on clapboard.com, concentrates creative impact rather than diluting it across multiple executions. Production credits for the Say Goodbye To Single Use Plastic campaign are not publicly documented. The 2019 campaign was structured as a remake of SodaStream's 2017 film featuring similar talent, suggesting a continuity of creative vision across the multi-year Game of Thrones partnership that adsoftheworld.com characterises as nine videos spanning approximately three years.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for the Say Goodbye To Single Use Plastic campaign is publicly available. The campaign carries a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100, reflecting competent execution within a well-established creative framework that stops short of genuine breakthrough. That score is consistent with a campaign that deploys recognisable cultural assets — a highly visible cast, a timely cultural moment, a clear environmental message — without introducing a structural creative innovation that would elevate it beyond the sum of its parts.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on three foundations. The timing relative to the Game of Thrones finale in May 2019 maximised earned attention at a moment when audience interest in the show's cast was at a multi-year peak across the United States. The sustained nature of the brand's relationship with Game of Thrones talent — nine videos over roughly three years, according to adsoftheworld.com — means the campaign benefits from accumulated familiarity rather than requiring audiences to form new associations from scratch. And the environmental message, amplified by PepsiCo's stated ambition to eliminate tens of billions of plastic bottles through the SodaStream platform according to pepsico.com, connects an individual consumer behaviour change to a credible corporate commitment, giving the call to action a weight it might otherwise lack.
What the campaign does not do is introduce a new argument or a new creative language. The remake structure, while strategically sensible, means the 2019 film competes against its own predecessor in the audience's memory — a constraint that places a ceiling on how transformative its reception could be in the United States market.
SodaStream's Say Goodbye To Single Use Plastic campaign is a 2019 film released in the United States in May of that year. It stars three Game of Thrones actors depicting everyday struggles with disposable plastic bottles and encourages consumers to switch to SodaStream's reusable home-carbonation system as a sustainable alternative.
Thor Bjornsson, Hannah Waddingham, and Kristian Nairn appeared in the 2019 campaign. All three are known for their Game of Thrones roles — Bjornsson as The Mountain, Waddingham as Septa Unella, and Nairn as Hodor — and had participated in SodaStream campaigns across approximately three years, according to adsoftheworld.com.
SodaStream timed the campaign to the conclusion of Game of Thrones Season 8 in May 2019. The finale represented a peak moment of audience attention around the show's cast, giving the brand a culturally resonant platform to amplify its environmental message across the United States, as documented by PR Newswire UK.
The 2019 campaign is a remake of an existing 2017 SodaStream film, as noted by adsoftheworld.com. It represented the ninth video SodaStream created with Game of Thrones talent over roughly three years, reflecting a deliberate strategy of iterating on a proven creative framework rather than building an entirely new campaign concept.
The Say Goodbye To Single Use Plastic campaign holds a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. That rating reflects competent use of cultural timing and recognisable talent within the Food and Drink category, while indicating the campaign did not introduce a structural creative innovation that would push it into breakthrough territory for the United States market.
The campaign sits within SodaStream's strategic pivot from soda-making toward sparkling water and environmental advocacy, as documented by pollackgroup.com. Parent company PepsiCo stated in September 2019 that expanding SodaStream could help avoid an estimated sixty-seven billion plastic bottles by 2025, according to pepsico.com, giving the campaign's message direct corporate backing.
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