Overview:
Returning for a new 17th series, throughout 12 episodes, adventurer Ben Fogle sets off to meet more people who have turned their back on the rat-race and set up home in remote locations in the UK and beyond in Ben Fogle: New Lives In The Wild. We watched as Ben joined a variety of brave individuals who chose to venture down a very alternative path to everyday life: from a former American professional sports-star who now lives in his own mountain cabin and a junk artist who found solace in an off-grid desert community to a Hollywood actress who’s swapped the bright lights for a horse sanctuary in Uruguay.
PR campaign:
This was the second time tpr media had worked on promoting Renegade Picture’s long-running series Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild. We carried out a high-visibility campaign across TV and radio, broadsheets and mid-market tabloids.
Overall there was a total of 670 pieces of coverage from 3rd January - 4th April across national and regional press, radio, TV and listings magazines. The sum of OTS (opportunity to see) was 380M and AVE (advertising value equivalent) was £9.04M (these figures only account for print and online press).
Broadcast highlights from the campaign included ITV’s This Morning interviewing Ben Fogle live in the studio with Phil and Holly. Ben and contributors Mike Basich and Chris Lewis were also all interviewed on Times Radio on separate occasions. Producers Natalie Wilkinson and Sean McDonnell were both interviewed on BBC Radio London at the beginning of the series and Chris Lewis was a guest towards the end.
National features included an interview feature with Ben in the Mirror at the start of the series. The Mirror Online also ran a feature on George and Sophie and Lyndon and Ruth following interviews with both the couples; these ran in print in The Sunday People. The Sun ran an online piece about contributor DNA and the Metro shared an article on Pirate Rob. The Mail Online ran weekly features for each episode including exclusive clips in advance of the programme. There were also some strong regional features on individual contributors. Reviews throughout the series remained extremely positive across national and regional publications.