THE GREAT CRUSADE

Short List
TitleTHE GREAT CRUSADE
BrandQANTAS
Product / ServiceAIRLINE
CategoryA04. Best Use of Brand Sponsorship Integration (where there is no product overtly displayed in the film,
EntrantWONDER Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company:WONDER Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Contributing Company:WONDER Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Glen Condie Wonder Creative Director/Writer
Adrian Popek Wonder Producer
Luke Hannan Wonder Producer
Sarah Jayes Wonder Assistant Producer
Gregor Jordan Finch Director
Nathan Earl Finch Showrunner/Writer/Director
Michael Hilliard Finch Producer
Phil Lloyd Finch Writer
Nick Hayden Finch Writer
Nick Mcdougall Finch Writer

The Campaign

With a few notable exceptions, most of the Branded Entertainment to date in Australia has been web based content or straight up product placement – not entertainment developed around a brand strategy. In 2010 the 4 Australian free to air commercial networks – 7,9,10 and SBS all added digital channels, vastly increasing the amount of advertiser supported programming available to consumers. There are now 16 free to air channels in a market of 22 million people. The free-to-air networks consider a show successful if it pulls over a million viewers an hour. Their digital channels need about 300,000 viewers to win a timeslot, and cable can range from 15,000 for non-sports shows up to 150-300,000 for blockbuster event shows. Australians have always been early technology adopters. The fractured media landscape and the challenges of pitching brand-funded shows to the networks has pushed advertisers to the internet as a viable cost per eyeball way to measure return on investment for branded entertainment. As advertisers move from a model where they supply a car as a consumer promotion on a game show into branded shows where the 'channel', story, character or situations are built around a brand agenda there is tremendous scope for long-form storytelling.

Results

New Zealand was the host of the 2011 Rugby World Cup (RWC). The Great Crusade (TGC) was Qantas’ leverage campaign for their major sponsorship asset, the Qantas Wallabies (Australian Rugby team). The Objective was to A) increase intention to visit the destination of New Zealand, and B) be seen as a major sponsor of the tournament (despite not being one) with out breaching tournament rules and regulations. The campaign was divided into three parts: 1. Recruitment – 3 months prior to the World Cup, we ran a national promotion recruiting consumers to submit a video showing how far they’d go to support their team and load it on the website. 2. Event – The Great Crusade Tour. 25 Qantas and Wallaby branded campervans, touring New Zealand, seeing and doing all that NZ had to offer and attending all the Wallabies matches. The tour was broken into 3 waves allowing over 100 people to live the experience of a lifetime. 3. TV Production. A 22 part ‘mockumentary' comedy series, produced and released over 35 days was developed by director Gregor Jordan starring Australian comic Phil Lloyd, starring, as big shot squash and badminton sports reporter, Toby Withers. Over 20m viewers have seen the episodes on TV, In-flight and on line. The campaign ran across all channels including TV, Print Radio, outdoor, Retail, Digital, Social Media and Promotional Teams.

Audiences were drawn to The Great Crusade across 4 central pillars. A social network based around TGC website, and then through in-flight screenings on Qantas, after which the weekly clips were uploaded to TGC website. The videos were so popular that the segment started appearing as part of the New Zealand television show ‘The Crowd Goes Wild’ and ultimately led the producers to write in a segment for Toby to appear live on the show, mixing the on-line and broadcast components of the story.

NIELSEN Research showed A) 70% of people exposed to The Great Crusade were more interested in booking a trip to New Zealand (in the next 12 months) and B) Qantas were the most recognised sponsor of the Rugby World Cup, despite not actually being one. Over 100 people got to live the experience of a lifetime, touring around New Zealand experiencing the best it has to offer and attending all of the Wallabies matches. Over 20m people followed them and TGC across various content platforms. We experienced an immediate sales spike in forward bookings to NZ. Forward bookings to NZ saw a lift during the Rugby World Cup, peaking during the pool rounds and the finals series. Whilst the competition generated its own coverage of NZ, our thirty-day voyage around less known parts of both islands contributed significantly to this uplift. The Great Crusade content received an Emmy nomination in the Digital Fiction category.