Branded entertainment in Australia is still emerging as a credible alternative to traditional advertising. The linear broadcast environment remains restrictive. Deals with commercial networks generally require a significant traditional advertising media-buy, in addition to funding production, and our public funded stations are inherently brand-integration averse.

As viewing habits begin to shift increasingly to “on demand”, it is unsurprisingly the online space that offers the most attainable opportunities for branded entertainment.

Ironically, whilst opportunities for longer form storytelling are increasing in Australia, budgets are growing ever tighter. The Mane Event for example – comprising 6 webisodes and 5 teasers, all shot, edited and released over three weeks – was produced with the budget of an average middle of the road 30 second TVC.

Objective:

In 2013, Australia’s national airline, Qantas was official sponsor of the British and Irish Lions rugby tour to Australia. Qantas wanted to use this opportunity to increase brand consideration among fans in the UK and Ireland. But the Lions tour consisted of just ten games over a five-week period; so our challenge was how to keep fans back home in Britain and Ireland engaged by the tour in the downtime between games.

Solution:

The rivalry between the “motherlands” and Australia is over 200 years old, and everyone in Britain and Ireland loves a chance to try and beat the “Aussies” at anything at all. So we gave them the opportunity to do just that: we created and filmed “The Mane Event” - a “Lions tour for the athletically ungifted” that pitted four ordinary Lions fans against local fans of the Australian national rugby team (the Wallabies).

We ran a digital promotion in the UK to select 4 Lions fans to represent their nations in The Mane Event. We then flew them to Australia and filmed them on tour as they tackled the locals in five epic (if somewhat unusual) challenges: Dry Weetabix (breakfast biscuit) Eating, The Sunscreen Race, Sheep Shearing, The Choir Off (a singing contest against the famous Qantas Choir), and the dramatic series finale – “The Ice Breaker” at Bondi Beach’s iconic “Icebergs” pool.

Serving as Mane Event Tournament Director; fuelling the fervour of national rivalry and sharing his “unique” perspective on proceedings was well-known Aussie actor and comedian Rob Carlton.

Filming by day and editing by night, we produced webisodes that were released on days on which there was no rugby for fans to watch. They were broadcast online through Microsoft and Bing and in Qantas inflight entertainment.

The Mane Event web series was broadcast online through Microsoft, Bing and Qantas online channels, and in Qantas Inflight Entertainment.

Viewers were drawn to the content online through digital advertising and video teasers. Teasers and webisodes were also shown on Qantas flights throughout the Lions Tour period.

The Mane Event attracted strong media coverage in press, TV and online.

The Mane Event proved almost as compelling as the Lions Tour itself, with 1.75 million people tuning into the series.

The Lions and the Wallabies players got into the series too, sending messages of support to their “athletically ungifted” counterparts via social media.

The Mane Event generated a PR reach of 79 million.

Australian national free-to-air television network Channel 10 chose to feature The Mane Event series finale as part of the TV build up to the final Lions vs Wallabies test match.

Post campaign research showed that viewers of the series were 37% more likely to consider using Qantas for their next flight.