The Telly That Kept Us Talking
Client
Virgin Media
Industry
Telco
Category
Documentary, sponsorship, campaign, social
This is the kind of project that sits at the centre of what I do as a Content Director: spotting the story, building the system to deliver it and leading a team to land it against an immovable deadline.
In 2020, TV mattered more than it ever had. With the Virgin Media-sponsored BAFTAs taking place largely without an audience in 2021, the brief was to bring the nation back together around the TV moments that defined the year and to drive votes for Virgin Media’s sponsored ‘Must-See Moment’ audience award, the sponsorship that most boosted the brand’s emotional relationship with customers.
On the Virgin Media account, I led an idea from pitch to delivery: The Telly That Kept Us Talking, an integrated content series built on a deliberately editorial strategy.
Rather than the nominated actors, we put real TV fans at its heart: the authentic voices who’d be talking about these shows whether the camera was there or not. Each of the six nominees got its own narrative, from the irreverence of Gogglebox and Nigella’s ‘mee-cro-wavey’ to the cultural weight of Bridgerton, Black Lives Matter in Britain’s Got Talent and domestic abuse in EastEnders.
The six films stood alone but worked as a balanced set, with no nominee favoured over another.
Then came the hard part: delivering TV-quality work at the speed of social.
With four days of pre-production, three weeks to concept, shoot and edit and a five-figure budget, we cast 56 fans in three days, recced 24 locations virtually under shifting Covid rules and sent a skeleton crew of four, including award-winning travel presenter Cassam Looch, on a UK-wide road trip.
They covered six cities in seven days and spoke to more than 150 telly lovers, then we turned hundreds of hours of footage into six episodes, social cuts and a 21-minute hero film in under a week, working entirely remotely. So impressed were BAFTA by the rushes that they asked us to cut a 90-second film for the ceremony itself, briefed just three days before it aired on primetime BBC One.
The numbers spoke for themselves:
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6 UK cities across 7 days, speaking to more than 150 TV fans
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6 short films plus social assets, delivered just 7 days after the shoot
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Picked up and promoted by nominees including Mark Hamill and Nicola Coughlan, reaching 20.6M people on social with no paid promotion
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A 21-minute hero film broadcast on demand, driving more than 5M OVOD impressions
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A 90-second edit broadcast during the BAFTA ceremony on primetime BBC One
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A 124% year-on-year increase in visits to vote for the award
What it shows: the ability to lead a complex, multi-stakeholder production across client, broadcaster, talent, crew and agency – turning editorial instinct into measurable brand results at pace.
