C4 Sales Teams with Mercedes-Benz Vans for Brand’s First Ever TV Partnership

Channel 4 Sales today announces a new partnership with Mercedes-Benz Vans and UKTV’s Dave channel – representing Mercedes-Benz Van’s first ever TV partnership.

Running for six months, the activity launches on Friday 1st May 2015.

Mercedes-Benz Vans’ idents will be visible around the programming strand Character’s on Dave which includes programming across Dave’s schedule such as Storage Hunters, Mock the Week and QI.

Cygnus Associates is responsible for the creative and production of a series of ten second idents. Each depicts a different scenario featuring a fictitious customer company in which its branding is revealed on the Citan, New Vito or Sprinter van – highlighting the different characters that use the vehicles.

With Dave’s audience and schedule in mind, Cygnus Associate’s creative aims to strike a careful balance between conveying a premium and stylish van range, and a delivery with a sense of personality and subtle humour that builds with each watch.

The partnership was brokered by Channel 4 Sales’ Partnerships Executive Tom Slater and Liam Swann, Partnerships Executive, Newcast division at ZenithOptimedia.

Across Q1 of 2015 Dave’s share of the TV viewing audience was up +9.3% year-on-year, with a share of 1.41%.

Steve Bridge, Managing Director, Mercedes-Benz Vans said: “For us, the partnership is an ideal fit – Dave’s values and ethos provides us with a great platform to share our customer-focused message. The viewing audience aligns extremely well and allows us to deliver engaging messaging with high impact and broad reach.”

Rupinder Downie, Partnership Controller, Channel 4 said: “We are delighted that Mercedes-Benz Vans has chosen to work with Channel 4 on their first ever TV partnership.  Dave is enjoying a great start to 2015 and Characters on Dave showcases a range of the channel’s most popular and highest rating shows.”

Marc Brown, Managing Director of Cygnus Associates said: “We had a great deal of fun bringing a real sense of humour to this campaign. The resulting concept is not only customer-focused, it’s simple yet incredibly memorable.”