What Happens When an Entire TV Channel Acts Out of Character?

Dave is one of Britain’s most iconic and loved TV channels. Showing programmes like 'Taskmaster', 'Red Dwarf XII' and Dara O'Briain's 'Go 8 Bit', its loyal viewers are always entertained.

 

But over the last few days its content has been a bit out of character.

At exactly 3.28pm, the hungriest time of day, Dave got a bit confused and turned into a completely different channel called Rupert. Rupert, a pontificating, polo playing, slipper wearing square, changed the schedule and started showing nonsense like the art appraisal show, ‘Private Collections’, the International Chess Championship, ‘Battle of The Boards’, and some vintage film noir, with the Parisian Classic ‘Ni Pour L’amour Ou L'argent’.

  

This out of character content did not just stop with the TV broadcast.

 

Rupert took over Dave’s advertising space swapping out the classic ‘Dave’ chalkboard branding with a gold and red velvet identity for ‘Rupert’. 

 

He controlled Dave’s social media, posting about Polo and the correct place setting when hosting a dinner party.

 

But Snickers soon put a stop to the chaos. 

 

In the live broadcast the plug was pulled, a set of colours bars appeared and a Snickers bar slammed onto screen with the famous tagline “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry”.

 

Having had a Snickers, Dave returned to the air and normal service resumed.

 

With the chaos over, an open letter of apology, in the form of an ad, was then issued containing a promise to all loyal Dave viewers that thanks to a stack of Snickers, Rupert will never return to disrupt the channel again.

 

The Dave and Snickers partnership was created by AMV BBDO and produced by UKTV Creative. The partnership included creating three fake TV shows, social, out of home and press and is the first commercial project for UKTV Creative, headed up Scott Russell.

 

The deal was brokered by Zenith and 4Sales.

 

Christoph Weber, Snickers Brand Director, comments: “We’re thrilled to partner with Dave for the next stage of the ‘You’re Not You When You’re Hungry’ campaign. This is an iconic campaign, and we hope fans of the brand enjoy seeing it return to their screens in such an innovative and unique way.”

 

Sarah Goldman, Director of Advertising at UKTV adds: “This partnership demonstrates UKTV’s willingness and ability to work with advertisers on bringing to life ambitious ideas.”