Virgin Media TV BAFTAs
Client
Virgin Media
Industry
Telco
Category
Sponsorship, email campaign, live event, social
This is the kind of brief that asks a Content Director to do several things at once, and to keep doing them for years: own the creative across a shifting multi-agency team, drive a national public vote by email, deliver broadcast content live on the night, and make all of it feel like one brand.
Virgin Media sponsored the British Academy Television Awards from 2017 to 2022, and I was the creative lead on the account at Redwood BBDO, first as Content Editor and then as Content Director, across four of those campaigns. My remit ran from the strategy months out to the assets going live on the night.
The heart of the sponsorship was the Must-See Moment, the only BAFTA voted for by the British public and a celebration of the TV moments that got the nation talking. Winning it for Virgin Media meant winning votes, and that work started long before the red carpet. Across multiple agencies and stakeholders, I led the content and contact plan that drove both votes and Virgin Media’s credentials as a TV brand, with Virgin Media Edit, the primary customer email, doing the heavy lifting. The balance was the hard part: keep relevance and turnout climbing while keeping message burnout low. It worked, with votes rising across consecutive years, and the 2021 push driving a 124% year-on-year increase in people visiting to vote.
Because Virgin Media Edit was the primary customer channel, I was also responsible for marshalling content from the other agencies into one coherent programme, landing the key sponsorship messages and creating original content around them. One of those briefs grew into The Telly That Kept Us Talking, the award-nominated documentary series.
On the night, I was Virgin Media’s key content partner, bringing an editorial eye to a live broadcast environment. My role shifted each year with the client’s needs and the state of the world.
For my first campaign, I was the brand’s backstage interviewer. I devised the questions for every possible winner and spoke to everyone from Benedict Cumberbatch and Fiona Shaw to the cast of EastEnders, fresh off the stage with their awards. The skill was finding angles that would travel on social while respecting what was, for many of them, a career-defining moment. I also led the creative for the highlights edits and an additional edit showcasing the customer party.
The following year, with the ceremony held behind closed doors during the pandemic and later than usual, I led the interviews remotely while Tom Allen put our questions to the stars, who appeared in the room or on video. It was a complicated setup, and we delivered highlights and interview packages for several different channels, all produced from home.
In 2021, back in a smaller studio, we ran the backstage area again. To tie the activation back to The Telly That Kept Us Talking, we put its presenter, Cassam Looch, in the interviewer’s chair, with questions I wrote to ladder back to the brand while still feeling unlike anything else the talent was asked that night. It drew genuinely emotional interviews with the likes of Michaela Coel and Paul Mescal. For the first time, we also worked with set designers to build the space under full COVID protocols, and the set had to flex between in-person and virtual guests while staying cost-efficient. It was the first campaign where we delivered and edited every asset for every channel ourselves: social cut-downs in two formats, full interview edits and highlights packages, all turned around on the night at the venue with full VFX.
For the final campaign, in 2022, we went bigger. Vick Hope presented and we again worked with set designers on a set that felt on-brand without shouting about it. We also owned the full production from filming through to delivering every edit for every channel on the night. More than 45 deliverables in all. In the lead-up to the awards, we also produced a separate edit hooked on the emotional moment superstar Adele thanked the teacher who inspired her by getting BAFTA nominees to talk about their own inspirational teachers.
What the four campaigns delivered:
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Four consecutive BAFTA campaigns led, from strategy to live delivery
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A public-vote email campaign that grew votes year on year, including a 124% year-on-year rise in visits to vote in 2021
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Backstage interviews with talent including Benedict Cumberbatch, Fiona Shaw, Michaela Coel and Paul Mescal
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A shift from contributing alongside other agencies to owning full production, with 45+ deliverables across every channel on the final night
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The brief that became The Telly That Kept Us Talking
What it shows: end-to-end creative leadership of a high-profile sponsorship – running a national email vote campaign, directing a multi-agency team and delivering broadcast-grade content live under pressure, four years running.
