Shortlisted 2019

AUTOMOTIVE

Brand

Rolls Royce Cullinan

Entered by:

Fox Networks Group

Credits:

Centigrade – Agency National Geographic Brand Partners

The Final Challenge – Cullinan

The Challenge

About to unveil it’s first SUV, Rolls-Royce faced a new challenge, to prove itself as a highly capable luxury off-road motor car, worthy of their promise to deliver an ‘Effortless, Everywhere’ experience to their discerning customers.
Rolls-Royce has a rich heritage in testing its Future Products in the public eye, the 1913 Alpine Trials are a prime example of this. With Cullinan, they wanted to take it a step further, and hence designed a series of gruelling tests
under camouflage in Scotland, the Middle East and the USA.

Along the way, a series of films documenting just how far the Cullinan could go were created. And having Adventurer of the year 2012 Cory Richards narrating only added to the sense of excitement leading up to launch day.

The Strategy

The Final Challenge fulfilled a promise made to the public by CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös after he assured them that they would be involved in the development of the Cullinan. The ‘always-on’ omnichannel strategy allowed our target audience to interact and engage with the content and follow the journey of discovery in real-time.

Our audience watched, commented and debated as the series of journeys began in the jagged Highlands of Scotland, continued through scorched deserts of the Middle East, before coming to a close across some of the most
brutally stunning terrain in the United States. The Final Challenge was captured across 24 short films and daily photographic content. The juxtaposition of travelling in absolute luxury across the world’s harshest environments created a beautiful melting pot of encounters, feelings and viewpoints on each step of the journey.

The Implementation

When planning Cullinan’s world journey, the stakes had to be high, the journey was documented and uploaded on a daily basis, and there had to be an element that was profoundly ‘Rolls-Royce’. So the team from Rolls-Royce, Centigrade and National Geographic put together a plan that actually managed to achieve this – three countries, challenging terrain, one Cullinan, no help.

A pre-production model Cullinan was camouflaged and sent through the Scottish Highlands, the dunes of Dubai and a selection of national parks in the US. Nothing was scouted in advance, with the trails, climbs and river crossings
dealt with as they appeared. And, in the event of a mishap, there was no spare Cullinan to swap in. Basically, whatever happened, happened. A catastrophic breakdown would have ended the trip.

Luckily, the car was in good hands as National Geographic explorer/photographer Cory Richards captured the journey from his unique perspective. Through an ongoing story told via daily content uploads of stunning photography, online audiences around the world witnessed how Cory and the Cullinan overcame each challenge and interacted with a plethora of amazing individuals encountered along the way.

Over the course of three months the Centigrade team shot and edited the content in preparation for the daily upload to the National Geographic website, the Rolls-Royce Motor Cars website and bespoke pages on Instagram,
Facebook and Twitter.

Short films were released at regular intervals, giving the audience every incentive to watch the unfolding journey. In fact, the content was so immediate that, on at least one occasion, film had to be edited in the back of the Cullinan.
Much to the delight of the editor.

To add the final Rolls-Royce flourish, the Cullinan and it’s crew collected agate, mother of pearl and gold along the way. The idea being that each of these precious materials would be brought back to Rolls-Royce in Goodwood to
embellish a bespoke, luxury motor car that would be auctioned for charity. A fitting concept for a car named after the world’s largest flawless diamond.

The Result

The campaign ran for 3 months – April – June 2018.
PR Results

  • 170 million

Digital Results

  • Over 14 million impressions for a 3 month campaign
  • 1.5 million unique page views on RRMC ‘The Final Challenge’ page
  • 200% increase in engagement on RRMC Social Channels
  • 333% increase in Organic Leads via RRMC.Com
  • 124% increase in average .COM session duration
  • Over 123.1 million social impressions across Instagram/Facebook and Twitter.
  • Most liked Instagram post on National Geographic for the month of April 2018.
  • Over 100,000 users on the custom hub with 5000 clicks to the Rolls Royce website.