This series formed part of a passion to improve and enhance the club’s video offering on main long-form channel, YouTube.
Previous content had been confined to standard fare such as press conferences, player interviews and post-match reaction.
However, the media and content team wanted to bring some depth and character to the output.
This was also a prime example of branded content as the club teamed up with Fiat.
At Aston Villa, we worked to help partners activate content that was relevant to them and also fitted our content strategy too.
We were looking for a new way for our players to express themselves because we felt staged sit-down interviews were fairly dull and we were also trying to push our ‘Be more Dog’ disruptive approach.
This series was filmed during our quarterly ‘Content Day’ by our video partner, Sunset & Vine.
We were assigned players the month before each event and I would prepare a script of questions for the presenter to work with.
Players were whisked off for a chat with popular sports hosts, Rachel Stringer and Michelle Owen, at the wheel.
Check out some of the best examples in this article, featuring John Terry, Jack Grealish and Albert Adomah.
The highest figures achieved with this series featured Grealish – hitting 74k views.
The series proved so popular that it was extended – and enhanced.
The second series became ‘Extreme Drive Time’.
James Chester and Alan Hutton took on the Jaguar Land Rover Experience course in Solihull while Sam Johnstone and Henri Lansbury battled it out in a tank – with the winner being given the chance to crush a car with it.
Paul Brown 