We wanted to create the world’s very first terrifying audio personalisation ad to fittingly promote Fox’s new offering, Alien Covenant.

The most attention grabbing word for anyone to hear is without doubt one's own name. Our big idea was to create the world’s first broadcast advert that used audio named personalisation to grab viewers’ attention like never before; we enabled Alien Covenant the chance to speak directly to our millions of viewers. It was not just a unique opportunity, but an immensely powerful marketing too.

The personalised audio complemented the creative tone of the film; we wanted to scare viewers in to going to watch Alien Covenant by showing them the horrifying trailer then telling them by name to ‘RUN’.

Data is at the heart of Channel 4’s digital strategy. Our 15 million strong registered viewer database for All 4 represented a wealth of data that we could harness to bring personalisation to a whole new level. Using this first party data, we were able to innovate and create a new digital advertising model which enabled Alien to take advantage of this pioneering innovation to create an audio personalised, targeted campaign.

As with many new innovations there were a number of barriers we had to overcome to make this happen. There was extensive technical work required across numerous partners including C4’s Data Science team, Freewheel (All 4’s ad server) and Innovid (C4’s interactive video tech partner).

What began as a small element of the film’s release soon gathered momentum across media due to it's ground-breaking innovation. The campaign caused widespread discussion across TV, press and radio outlets. BBC News ran a 3min discussion piece which included the whole Alien Covenant Trailer which, if you could advertise on the BBC, would be worth an estimated £98,000, more than double the budget of the iVoD. Sky News, seven radio stations including BBC Radio 4 and TalkSport, 12 press titles both online and in print, all covered the personalised trailer (titles included The Daily Mail, Mail Online and i News). The estimated value of coverage was c.£0.5m. Radio 4’s World at One presenter said ‘It’s a sign of how sophisticated advertising has become’.

But the most important result was the box office takings. The campaign and the halo effect caused by the associated PR helped Alien Covenant open at No. 1. It also eclipsed comparable titles in its competitive set such as Mad Max: Fury Road, World War Z and The Martian.

The audio campaign showed an incredible 54% uplift in engagement compared to the standard benchmark and drove masses of social conversations across all the major social networks.