Desert Cowboys Campaign by Proximity Barcelona Gets Viewed 5 Million Times
'The Desert Cowboys' is a series of branded content videos that we featured earlier this year. The campaign is all about paying homage to the Almeria region of Spain’s glorious past and explaining its current problem with isolation – with the aim of generating public support for creating a 21st century stagecoach service to reconnect the desert’s villages.The launch of the service, on 20 September, was reported at the presentation of the 7th edition of the Almeria Western Film Festival. A film festival created to promote the Western genre and stimulate the film industry in the region, of which ŠKODA is one of the main sponsors. After helping the inhabitants of Valdelinares and the Tabernas Desert, the brand continues in its fight against isolation and depopulation in remote locations with mobility solutions.
The video has now been viewed globally a staggering five million times, which is a great result for its creators, Proximity Barcelona.
The project aims to extend its scope far beyond Almería and Spain, as its end goal is to make people aware of the global problem of isolation in rural areas, an issue that affects thousands of villages all over the world. An English version of the project has also been developed and will be launched across the Czech brand’s various markets.
The Tabernas Desert (Almería) played a major role in the development of the international western industry. Many of the most iconic spaghetti westerns were filmed there. However, once the commercial opportunities of the western had been exhausted, a different reality set in. Since the demise of the western, the villages in the Tabernas Desert have suffered from a lack of job opportunities and poor services and communication links. This has had huge demographic implications for the area – the number of people living here has halved in recent decades, leading to an ageing population and making isolation a real threat to be feared.
The launch of the service, on 20 September, was reported at the presentation of the 7th edition of the Almeria Western Film Festival. A film festival created to promote the Western genre and stimulate the film industry in the region, of which ŠKODA is one of the main sponsors. After helping the inhabitants of Valdelinares and the Tabernas Desert, the brand continues in its fight against isolation and depopulation in remote locations with mobility solutions.
