The Show
In 2016, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May took on a new adventure launching their own show at Amazon Prime Video. This was the first truly global show for Prime Video and quickly became the most watched show worldwide on the service.
The social media strategy focused on staying authentic to fans of Top Gear but being relevant to the new journey of the show. The goal was to make fans feel as if the social media was done by Clarkson, Hammond, and May themselves. It was to be raw and true vs traditional social media marketing.
Becoming The Grand Tour
The journey began with Clarkson, Hammond and May debating potential show names, leading to over 28,000 name suggestions and articles in print media worldwide.
It also featured an incredbily long but accurate hashtag: #TheStillVeryMuchUntitledClarksonHammondMayAmazonPrimeShowComingAutumn2016.
Example article from Digital Spy about #GrandTouraFilm which was spawned from Reddit fan art.
Listening to Fans to Build a Base
The strategy always relied on fans of the show, who would always be more clever than we could be. Therefore listening and amplifying fan conversation was important and drove multiple trending topics.
Over the course of 3 seasons, more than 1,000 articles were written about The Grand Tour’s social media approach with more than 6 million following The Grand Tour organically on social.
To launch season 3, we wanted to drive conversation about the show. What better way then a hashtag celebrating Amazon’s Hit Car Show. As many media articles pointed out, the hashtag could have many meanings leaving both fans and non-fans globally talking about the show.
#GiveMeHeads
Leaning into the cheeky nature of the presenters, three giant heads were trasnported across the world. At the end of the journey, fans were given the opportunity to win the heads by sharing where they would put their giant head and using this very simple hashtag.
The creation of the first custom Echo alarm for a television show. Led the ideation, creation, and implementation of two Echo alarms to support seasons 1 and 2 of The Grand Tour. The alarms were seeded out to fans and journalists to drive organic conversation and discovery.
Tweet Powered Cars helped launch season 2 for a younger demographic. Three global influencers were chosen to drive from Edinburgh to Italy, and across Mexico in cars that were powered by Twitter hashtags. In order for an influencer to reach their destination, they had to have their fans tweet about the show.