Cycle on Ceylon: Spirit of The Journey – Documentary Film Trailer
In 2012, B.P. de Silva Holdings, Singapore’s oldest family-run business, approached Gone Adventurin’ with a unique set of challenges. Their objective: to use the occasion of their 140th anniversary to strengthen their external stakeholder engagement, enhance brand identity by communicating brand story and their heritage, maximise ROI on brand marketing spend, increase employee pride and give back to and support communities in Sri Lanka, a country critical to their heritage and future growth.
Gone Adventurin’ first understood B.P. de Silva Holdings’ values, brand personality and sustainability objectives. We also understood the people who matter to their brand and who they want to engage, then finalised the project’s objectives. We then created a custom-designed branded content project – Cycle on Ceylon, based on a cycling adventure on bamboo bicycles across Sri Lanka which involved B.P. de Silva Holdings’ employees and directors.
The adventure took the cyclists through breathtaking landscapes across the length of Sri Lanka on a journey from white sandy beaches, up misty mountains, over scorching deserts and through battle-scarred towns, all to raise awareness and support of sustainable social development.
Off the tourist route, the cyclists visited various communities deep in the country where the charity Practical Action operates and experienced inspiring, life-changing stories like that of an old gem miner who started working as boy, teenagers that lost their families in the 2004 tsunami when they were children and refugee Tamil farmers rebuilding after a long and bloody conflict.
The entire expedition was turned into branded media content in the form of Cycle on Ceylon: Spirit of The Journey, a 45-minute broadcast-quality documentary film as well as a 3-minute film trailer targeted towards the people who matter to B.P. de Silva Holdings.
We then facilitated documentary film screenings and worked with the PR agency of B.P. de Silva Holdings to maximise the outreach of the branded content through specific content marketing channels.
Cycle on Ceylon: Spirit of The Journey enabled B.P. de Silva Holdings to authentically share its brand story and heritage to more than 4 million people through documentary film screenings in venues such as the British High Commission in Singapore, Australian Centre for Moving Image in Melbourne and 15+ media impressions in online and traditional print media.
This resulted in a 250% ROI on brand marketing spend, due to the newsworthiness of the content which allowed for S$0 spend on media buying. The events and media content raised critical awareness and more than S$35,000 for Practical Action and internally increased the sense of pride amongst B.P. de Silva Holdings’ employees.
“The content generated from Cycle on Ceylon brought our brand to life. Gone Adventurin’ achieved this through unique, creative and innovate content relevant and compelling to our stakeholders.”
- Navin Amarasuriya, Director of B.P. de Silva Holdings
