Nomads on Wheels: A media junket for a documentary series, why not!
How to capture the public’s attention in the sea of content offered to viewers? Picbois has worked closely with its broadcasting partners to redouble its creativity. Here’s an example from our series Nomads on Wheels, broadcast on Historia.
Nomads on Wheels
Nomads on Wheels is a documentary series of 5 one-hour episodes produced for Historia. The series brings together three motorcyclists who embark on a journey of over 3,520 km through isolated regions of Quebec and James Bay. Their goal: to reach the most remote point of any road-accessible city in North America. From Montreal to the Caniapiscau reservoir, at the very end of the Transtaiga highway, the expedition will take 22 days.
For the project, we wanted to reach the core target audience of the motorcycling community, while at the same time broadening out to a wider public.
Junkets: not just for fiction!
To promote the project, we suggested that the broadcaster organize a junket for the media on the eve of the team’s departure. A junket is a way of bringing together journalists and the protagonists of a series to kick off a project with the media. A formula too often reserved for fiction.
Here are the ingredients for a successful junket:
- The participation of series sponsor KTM Canada, who welcomed us to their Chambly warehouse. A great way to give them back their visibility, and a win-win partnership!
- A press relations campaign that not only captured the attention of the motorcycle community’s specialized media, but also generated the publication of an article in La Presse (a challenge for a specialty channel documentary series!).
- The opportunity for journalists to hear the project’s protagonists and initiators share their enthusiasm in person, take photos and conduct interviews with them and key members of the production team.
We also took the opportunity to shoot the official photos for the series, which were then used in promotional tools.
“I absolutely fell in love with this series. The spectacular showcasing of Quebec territory, places we’ve never seen before, and above all the three protagonists who set off on this adventure […] who are all go-getters.”
– Nathalie Petrowski, C’est juste de la TV
A series that shines in the media and at the Prix Gémeaux
While the junket reached mainly the specialized media, the series’ release reached the mainstream media, which gave it warm coverage.
The series was also nominated for a Prix Gémeaux in the Best Observation Documentary Series category.
