Fortitude is a British psychological TV drama set in the Arctic and starring Stanley Tucci, Michael Gambon, Christopher Eccleston and Sofie Grabol.

The series was scheduled to launch in the UK at the end of January 2015 and our brief was to create a disruptive media event that would raise awareness of the series and attract viewers.

Fortitude was a new series, and only available to Sky Atlantic subscribers which presented us with a challenge.

We found our inspiration in a scene from the first episode in which the character of Governor Hildur Odegard (Sofie Grabol) says that in the town of Fortitude there are more polar bears than people, as well as the opening scene which shows a polar bear killing a man.

Could we bring the defining symbol of the series – the polar bear – to London and create a unique experiential event and branded news story which would cut through on a grand scale?

Our Fortitude polar bear would prove that an audacious, creative and well-executed stunt could deliver huge results in earned media, drive consumer awareness across millions of social timelines and most importantly of all, help to deliver viewers.

We unleashed our bear in several locations.

Our first day was dedicated to securing media assets in closed sets and quieter locations - a disused Jubilee line platform at Charing Cross and Hampstead Heath at dawn.

Our second day was a live event – hitting commuter rush hour on London’s South Bank before touring Leicester Square where we offered key DJs from Heart and Capital the chance to meet the polar bear.

A set of images along with information about the activity was released to media. We produced a ‘making of’ video that would tell the story of how the polar bear was created, the public’s reactions to it and key clips from the show.

A promoted tweet bought against #polarbear ensured that all of those tweeting about the polar bear were given information about Fortitude.

Pictures were drip-fed onto Twitter and Facebook, with support from the Fortitude cast.

Within hours of the reveal, #polarbear was trending on Twitter as we landed on the homepages of Mashable, Huffington Post and Reddit.

500+ pieces of fully credited coverage with an editorial reach of 83 million globally as well as 47 million Twitter impressions, 30 million of which were in the UK.

Dozens of sites embedded our 'making of' video, which has been viewed over 300,000 times.

The first episode was watched by 1.7 million viewers – the channel’s biggest audience to date for an original show – a 570% increase on slot average.

Media highlights in the first 24 hours;

8 national newspapers (print) – The Guardian, The Times, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Daily Star, Metro, Evening Standard, Daily Record.

Key online sites – Mail online, The Sun, Telegraph online, Independent, City AM, ITV, AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, BBC online.

Several major international outlets - NBC News, TVNZ, Russia Today.