Shadow Napping

Foster’s asked Play to complement their Shadow Napping TV campaign by using digital channels to raise brand favourability and increase sales of Foster’s Super Chilled amongst their target audience of 18-24 year old males. Foster’s 2008 TV spot saw a gang of Aussie mates raiding the streets of Sydney for shadows in order to keep their pints of Super Chilled, super chilled. It was a phenomenon that came to be known as ‘Shadow Napping'. 

Whilst the Aussie Shadow Napping Gang were relaxing off set, Play coaxed a challenge from them and, on our return to the UK, orchestrated a nationwide search for a group of British mates who would rise to it. Word spread and regional auditions followed, eventually leaving us with five mates who were prepared to travel to Sydney and do whatever was necessary to try and beat the Aussies at their own game. After flying our mates Down Under, where they were greeted by challenges that ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, we filmed their adventures and released them in weekly episodes on our Shadow Napping website. We then gave users the chance to nap some shadows of their own via an online multi-player game played out in ad units across the Internet known as ‘Virtual Shadow Napping’. 

Our interactive ads recorded interaction rates 400% in excess of industry benchmarks and average interaction times of over 2 minutes. Our episodes amassed hundreds of thousands of views with the average user session on the website recorded at ten minutes. Most importantly, an independent brand awareness study conducted by Dynamic Logic concluded that our campaign increased brand favourability for Foster’s Super Chilled by 18%.