With its heritage in motor racing, Repco’s take over as major sponsor of the iconic Australian ‘Bathurst 1000’ race event, meant the great race was finally in the hands of a brand that lives and breathes the sport. To celebrate, Repco wanted to bring the racing spirit and energy to audiences by ‘Bringin’ the Bathurst’ to ‘everything’, over the duration of the fully integrated campaign.

With the brief being to live up to the promise of bringing that sense of high octane and fanatical spirit to traditional touch points, this inevitably spilled into all kinds of innovative executions, even taking over other brands' TV ads!

The objectives were to showcase a modern, contemporary brand with deep knowledge of automotive, and define Repco’s ownership as title sponsor, by communicating in a way that demonstrated its understanding of its audiences. That meant, ensuring authenticity, being bold, fun and proving its passion.

Repco celebrated becoming the major sponsor of the Repco Bathurst 1000 by ‘Bringin’ the Bathurst’ to everything they did. In a broadcast and brand partnership first, they even brought the Bathurst to other brands’ TV ads!

Whilst it looked like Repco had taken over Pizza Hut, Vegemite, Rams, Drummond Golf and more, we had actually collaborated with media and Channel 7 to secure 90 second TV spots that looked like individual ads, but were actually all ours. Our brand ad played, then bled into the proceeding ads in the ad break using our high octane Bathurst spirit, VO and sound effects to tie everything together.

With ‘Bringing the Bathurst’, we set up an adrenaline-inducing ambition, with a creatively led media strategy comprised of two words: “prove it”.

Repco’s ‘Take Over’ was a collaboration with partnering brands, including some of Australia’s most iconic, like Vegemite, Pizza Hut, Rams, Chemist Warehouse and more. Using their most current on air TV ads, we re-scripted with our own ‘Bathurst-ified’ VO and added genuine V8 Supercar audio, that was perfectly timed to the action happening on screen in the existing footage of our partner ads. Stitching these all together gave us a desired look, like we’d taken over these brands’ ads while the full ad segment played out, ensuring race fans never missed a second of the high octane Bathurst spirit!

Working closely with media and Australian broadcast network channel 7, we ensured multiple 90 second TVC ad block buys. Partnering with some of Australia’s most iconic brands, was also no small undertaking; navigating complex stakeholding and legal complexities.

Every ‘take over’ ad spot was strategically bought so they’d only feature during telecasts over the race weekend, this meant viewers wouldn’t miss a second of any on or off-track, Bathurst action.

Placements begun playing at the start of each allotted spot during the great race, leading with our 45” ‘Repco Bringin’ The Bathurst’ ad, then moving into the proceeding 3 x 15” blocks, which were actually also part of our single 90” spot. This made it look like other brands ads were playing, but with our Bathurst spirit/VO spilling over the top. The final ad then finished in our take over and went back into the Bathurst broadcast.

Race weekend coverage was a hit, reaching 4.1 million viewers across Channel 7 and 7mate. This was an 11.2% increase on 2020 coverage across capital cities.

For Repco, across it’s P18-54 buying demographic, 471k people saw at least one of our 6 spots over race weekend, with a total 1m plus in total getting their eyeballs across it.

On repco.com.au unique traffic surged by +90% vs Bathurst period 2020, and revenue jumped by +14.1% up on the Bathurst period from the year prior.

Overall, race fans, enthusiasts, trade customers and suppliers have all jumped onto the ‘Bringin’ the Bathurst’ bandwagon, adopting it into vernacular, buying merchandise, shopping more with the brand and most importantly embracing the synonymy between Bathurst and Repco.