Taking the accolade of being Channel 4’s biggest ever short form commission, THE HELLUVA TOUR was developed as the ultimate manifestation of possessing a ‘can do spirit.’ Four strangers were to drive a shiny gold 1980’s Bedford Bambi camper van all the way from the UK to Melbourne, where Foster’s was originally brewed, and we were going to tell the story of this ultimate road trip across TV, All4’s on-demand platform, cinema, advertising and social media. It was incredibly brave of Foster’s to run with the idea and, to make it work (safely!), it required a huge amount of collaboration between Mediavest, adam&eve, Channel 4, Fosters and production company Alleycats.

It began with an experientially led recruitment, in which we planted Foster’s branded phone boxes throughout the country and surreptitiously challenged people ‘to answer the call.’ The call to action was also delivered via a cinema ad as well as through on-trade activation in pubs. Highlights of interactions were then played out in social, while a month later we revealed the pimped up van in a teaser episode on All 4, followed by the four members of the public who made it through one helluva selection process!

We sent our four strangers on the epic road trip from UK to Australia and set them a series of extreme challenges along the way. Filming their trip with a TV crew we created a bespoke entertainment series for ALL 4, Channel 4's on-demand TV entertainment platform. The 11 episode adventure series launched weekly on All 4 in September through to December.

-Over 13.5M views of Helluva Tour video content online

-Over 108,000,000 impressions on Facebook

-Over 150,000 programme views on All 4

-View Through Rates of the ‘Helluva Tour’ TV Series on All 4 averaged 84%

-Our Twitter activity generated 276k engagements with content

-We drove over 190k video engagements through our digital display activity

-120,000,000 ident views on Channel 4 comedy shows

-Viewers of the sponsorship were 87% more likely to make Foster’s their first choice lager than non-viewers. We saw a higher prevalence amongst viewers who were also aware of the short form content.

-Post campaign research metrics improved all the following brand metrics:

> A brand that makes the most of life’s opportunities +34%

> ‘A brand I can trust’ +8%

> ‘A brand to be seen with’ +7%

> ‘A brand that shares my interest’ +4%

> ‘A great brand for me’ +3%