New Campaign from 4creative Reminds Us Why You Can Never Beat the Great Outdoors

To launch Channel 4’s new series ‘Alone’, an extreme and uncompromising survival experiment, Channel 4’s award-winning in-house creative agency 4creative has created a series of media specific executions launching today that dramatise how the great outdoors can always defeat you.  

The campaign highlights the twist in this survival series; that the 11 contestants dropped into the Canadian wilderness – with no camera person or support team and only basic tools – aren’t competing against each other to win £100,000, but rather the unrelenting great outdoors itself. The idea is built out from one simple line: “The Great Outdoors. You Can’t Beat it.” 

A bespoke 30” cinema spot shows us a snapshot of a terrifying night spent in the wilderness, filmed in first person perspective through a camcorder to mimic how the show itself is self-shot by its contestants. Immersive sounds of the wilderness surround the audience, from birds and bugs to howls and creaks, as it becomes clear that something dangerous is near. Tension builds just as a mobile phone rings, seemingly from somewhere inside the cinema, alerting a bear whose eyes flicker on screen for a beat. It roars before the footage cuts off and a title on the cinema screen reminds us to turn off our phones.  

For OOH, six copy-led posters drop the viewer in the wilderness and highlight ways in which the outdoors can easily defeat us - from eating the wrong berries to bug bites and bear attacks. Each poster uses dark humour to show just how tough the challenge is for every contestant.  

The campaign also features an immersive radio spot, on air / social teasers, a series of clip-based trailers and YouTube content developed by 4creative in collaboration with Channel 4.0, featuring creators Billythegoat, Darkest Man and Nella Rose, who spend a night alone in woods with hilarious results. This content will launch the week the series starts. 

Lynsey Atkin, 4creative ECD, said, “The team have had a great time dreaming up all the terrifyingly large – and horrifyingly small – things that could go wrong in the wilderness, bringing them to life with grim humour and bold imagery in a typically Channel 4 way.” 

Amber Kirby, marketing director, said, “An extreme survival series like Alone requires some extreme headlines, in a way that you think ‘surely they can’t say that can they?’, well we just did. We are Channel 4 after all…” 

‘Alone’ begins on Channel 4 on Sunday, August 6th at 9pm.