CHALLENGE

In order to promote the new show “Canada’s Worst Handyman,” Discovery Channel Canada challenged Fuel Industries to develop an online interactive experience centered around the show’s concept of what can happen when amateurs with more ambition than ability attempt to renovate a dilapidated apartment complex.

STRATEGY

To engage the show's viewers in a unique way, Fuel Industries developed an immersive online experience that would insert users into the world of the show, allowing players to participate in their own do-it-yourself disaster renovation project. Part of the fun of the television show is in the havoc that is caused, so the game was designed to bring viewers even closer to the action by seeing these renovations through the eyes of an inept handyman in an entertaining, risk-free environment.

CREATIVE & EXECUTION

Within the game, users help “Handy Ted,” a comical amateur handyman, fix a hardwood floor with a nail gun, weld a pipe next to a live gas line, re-wire a light fixture and cut out a doorframe with a chainsaw. Once the player has completed each challenge – inevitably resulting in disaster – the game offers helpful tips on how to avoid the same outcomes in real life.

To bring the experience to life for the user, the look and feel of the show had to be accurately replicated. To accomplish this, Karbon Arc used its leading-edge Hot Spot Video to create an interactive interface that combines virtual graphics with live video. We constructed a set without hazards that could be “renovated” for the project. Then, photo resources from the set were used to recreate the scenarios in photorealistic flash games. The result is an entertaining and memorable experience that interchanges between video and gameplay seamlessly, where actions in the game lead to the outcome in the following video.

Although the concept of destroying a virtual wall with a chainsaw is incentive enough to spread the game virally, players who completed all four DYI tasks were entered to win a $5000 grand prize. Players could also submit their e-mail address for a reminder before the show aired.

In addition to the viral online component of the campaign, the promotion of the show was supported by transit shelter advertising in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, Superboards with extensions in Toronto and with 30-second promos airing nationally on Discovery Channel, CTV, TSN, OLN, Animal Planet, CTV Travel, and Discovery Civilization.

PERFORMANCE

The site drew over 500,000 visitors, and as a result of the campaign audiences were up an average of 71% vs. the same timeslot in Fall 2005. Canada’s Worst Handyman was the top Canadian series in Spring 2006. In addition, during the time of the campaign, visits to discoverychannel.ca were up 29% vs. the previous month with the Worst Handyman microsite being the second most popular section after the homepage in the month of April.