Channel 4 and Foster's Team Up For A Helluva Tour

The Big Idea

Foster's wanted to move away from their 'no worries' style of previous years and create a current, relatable conversation for their target group in a time of pulling back and being careful post-financial crisis. This new approach became 'WHY THE HELL NOT'?' Our challenge was to build a campaign around this new and modern direction for the brand, bringing meaning to it in an engaging, entertaining and relevant way for our audience with maximum visibility. We therefore created a brand-new short, the concept of which followed four strangers driving a pimped up 80's camper van all the way from the UK to Australia - reinventing the sponsorship model through a return to sponsorship of Original Comedy on Channel 4.

Making it Happen

It began with an experientially led recruitment process in July, in which Foster’s planted branded phone boxes throughout the country and surreptitiously challenged people ‘to answer the call.’ Highlights of interactions with the phone boxes were played out in our idents and in social, and a month later we revealed the pimped up van, followed by the four members of the public who made it through one helluva selection process!

In September the tour itself began, resulting in 11 episodes of premium and entertaining content on All 4. However, the hundreds of hours of content we filmed stretched far further than that: new idents featured the latest footage as the tour was happening and “Foster’s Helluva Tour” became the named sponsor of the Original Comedy strand, promoting the series on All 4. Behind the scenes footage played out across social channels, including Foster’s Facebook and Instagram feeds and on screen(s) we saw our up-for-it tourists entertain us with: oil wrestling in Turkey, competing on Thailand’s version of the X Factor, braving wolves in Kyrgyzstan and overcoming everything else you expect to come out of driving a Bedford Bambi to Australia!

Off screen we had to deal with Russian border control during the Ukrainian crisis, Chinese paper work, and attempting to fly the van beneath a balloon over the channel with world renowned balloonist Per Lindstrand – which due to further paperwork ended up being a field in Shropshire!

The Results

The campaign delivered on all of Foster’s objectives with over 13.5M views of Helluva Tour content online and over 86M impressions on Channel 4 platforms. It also garnered over 109M impressions on Facebook and overall, viewers of the sponsorship were 87% more likely to make Foster’s their first choice lager than non-viewers.

Research showed the Helluva Tour episodes promoted the strategic position with statements on “being up for a challenge” and having “a real can-do attitude” showing strongly, resulting in a 34% increase in score for Foster’s as “A brand that makes the most of life’s opportunities” after being exposed to the content. In turn this has led to particular gains in the brand being seen as ‘A brand to be seen with’ (+7ppt), ‘Brand I can trust’ (+8%), ‘A brand that shares my interest ‘ (+4ppt), and ‘A great brand for me’ (+3ppt), as well as a marker of credibility, ‘A brand with an established heritage’ (+4ppt), for those viewers who recognised the Tour content.