X Factor sponsorship plays a crucial role for TalkTalk - raising awareness and increasing brand affinity amongst families. Our learnings show that brand communication that fails to get consumer participation is increasingly wasted. Communication must be so powerful and entertaining people won’t skip it but join in and ideally pass it on.

We were tasked with developing a concept that utilized cutting edge technology, whilst ensuring the mechanism was still fun, easy to use and had mass appeal resulting in people associating TalkTalk with being fun and fresh.

With 150k people auditioning for The X Factor every year, we knew there was an army of fans out there who love singing and dancing and want to get on TV. We wanted to ensure that each fan was able to create their own unique, personal experience that could be shared. At the TalkTalk BrightStar Studio, using their webcam, X Factor fans could create their very own music video, enter into the online charts and share with friends on Facebook. The best ones were chosen each week and broadcast to up to 20 million viewers in The X Factor ad breaks.

1.075 million unique visitors came to the site, creating over 130k user-generated uploads - a 116% increase on 2009. A call to vote for the show’s final idents sparked frenzy as fans spread the word, bringing 200k new people to the site and generating 370k votes during the 10 day promotion. We even reached Hollywood, helping to launch 9-yr old Willow Smith’s first single “Whip My Hair” on the platform.Whilst the above results are a resounding success, the best result of all is seeing almost every fan who submitted a video having fun while they engaged with TalkTalk.