Fans of the show can show their allegiance to their favourite Top Gear presenters with a Clarkson/Hammond/May antenna ball covermount gift.
Idea
Fans of the show can show their allegiance to their favourite Top Gear presenters with a Clarkson/Hammond/May antenna ball covermount gift.
This has wider ramifications: it becomes an engaging way of integrating magazine sales with the TV show and the online community.
Execution
Each magazine asks readers to show their allegiance to either Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond or James May by displaying a ‘Presenter Head’ foam antenna ball on their cars, given away (in separate editions) as covermount prizes.
This becomes a competition that is referenced in the TV show itself (prior to the magazine going on sale, with results revealed after the magazine’s run ends) and on the TG UK Facebook page, where readers are encouraged to participate in the competition by uploading photos of their antenna balls.
‘Winning’ depends on several different criteria: which presenter’s head has sold the most magazines, the number of pictures uploaded to the TG UK Facebook page, the number of high performance cars displayed on, and the furthest distance from the UK a presenter has’ travelled’ (for example several different James May heads may be photographed as far afield as Alaska, Tasmania and Madagascar. Whichever presenter covers the most miles wins that category).
The presenter that loses out has to do a forfeit, which means physically distributing the surplus antenna balls on the worst cars they can find. This is filmed for the TV show.
Effect
Unite all aspects of the wider Top Gear offering – print, TV and online to build a wider community among each.
