After the success of the "Take Back The Tour" campaign, Versus asked us to rebrand their coverage of the entire season the following year.
THE SITUATION
2009: Lance Armstrong returns to cycling and the Tour de France. During Lance’s three-year hiatus, the sport had lost some luster in the U.S., due to a lack of star power. We needed to capitalize on Lance’s return to rebrand their overall cycling coverage and bring viewers back to the Tour de France.
THE SOLUTION
The “Epic Cycle” was born. The return of the 7-time king, Lance Armstrong, coupled with the ascendance of all of his former foes to positions of power made for epic storylines. And epic racing. The campaign built drama around the characters and the highly charged stories in cycling. We branded the Tour de France “The Most Epic Race. Ever.”
2009: Lance Armstrong returns to cycling and the Tour de France. During Lance’s three-year hiatus, the sport had lost some luster in the U.S., due to a lack of star power. We needed to capitalize on Lance’s return to rebrand their overall cycling coverage and bring viewers back to the Tour de France.
THE SOLUTION
The “Epic Cycle” was born. The return of the 7-time king, Lance Armstrong, coupled with the ascendance of all of his former foes to positions of power made for epic storylines. And epic racing. The campaign built drama around the characters and the highly charged stories in cycling. We branded the Tour de France “The Most Epic Race. Ever.”
Lance Armstrong's return from retirement set the stage for a dramatic season.
So we portrayed riders as the cast of the drama on the Versus site and in a series of spots.
We also produced a graphic novel following the biggest story lines throughout the season.
Episodes were released on the site and packaged as on-demand broadcast content.
THE RESULTS
The results were nothing short of epic as well with Versus racing to a big ratings increase. Versus saw a 97.6% rise in viewership for the tour’s 21 stages. More than 30 million viewers tuned into a portion of Versus’ wall-to-wall coverage of the Tour. Our “Adventures from the Epic Cycle” were the most viewed content on versus.com with 16 million videos viewed.
The results were nothing short of epic as well with Versus racing to a big ratings increase. Versus saw a 97.6% rise in viewership for the tour’s 21 stages. More than 30 million viewers tuned into a portion of Versus’ wall-to-wall coverage of the Tour. Our “Adventures from the Epic Cycle” were the most viewed content on versus.com with 16 million videos viewed.
