The Department Takes Home Gold at The Drum Content Awards

The Drum Awards announced the winners of this year’s Content Awards at their red carpet ceremony at The Marriott Grosvenor Square Hotel in London last night.

The Department was awarded ‘Best Automotive Content Marketing Strategy/ Campaign’ for their work with Toyota C-HR creating the world’s first drive-through immersive experience.

The target consumer likes to be constantly on the move, so the Department’s strategy was to bring this to life through a unique adventure, with the car at the forefront of the narrative. Narrated by and starring Milla Jovovich, the press were taken on a journey of eight fictional scenes of converging short stories by award winning novelist Matt Wilven, each set in Toyota’s priority markets. The adventure was uniquely curated through state-of-the-art, immersive, mixed-reality theatrics and technologies. 

During the event pivotal moments were secretly captured live, creating 100 personalised films which were delivered to each guest to share with their networks. Content included a 180 degree bullet-rig time slice of guests while posing for a catwalk, a drone shoot. A hidden camera captured the finale where they finally met with Milla and found their perfect flow.

The range of assets empowered The Department's guest list of both influencers and lifestyle press to tell their personal story of this adventure with Toyota in an authentic and unique way. 

This fully immersive, 360 degree, multi-sensory theatrical experience took seven months to plan in collaboration with Freud Communications. The Department convened a bespoke team of celebrated artists from the creative industry to make this possible; including set designers, technicians, projectionists and film-makers, to bring Toyota’s creative flow concept to life. The car starred as the protagonist and the conduit in this powerful narrative.

The campaign achieved an editorial reach of more than 838 million, with the 100 invited influencers and media guests creating  more than 361 posts on the night, with a campaign hashtag that achieved a reach of 37 million across social.

The project was also nominated for The Drum's Grand Prix Award, a special award that is hand selected by the Judges for the branded content that stood out from the competition. 

“It is a privilege and honour to win this award on behalf of our client Toyota. It’s fantastic to see the industry recognising brands investing in immersive storytelling to make a real impact that lasts. This collaboration with Freud Communications brought together our unique disciplines to design a totally new business model for a car launch for today’s audiences," said Jonny, Co-Founder and Commercial Director of the Department.