Murder Island for
for Channel 4
Murder Island was an innovative new series coming to Channel 4. The show featured four teams of amateur sleuths racing against each other to solve a fictional murder, written by famed crime author Ian Rankin. The brief was to explain the format and excite audiences to tune in.
Detectives Wanted
It doesn’t matter if it’s true-crime, a thriller or a murder mystery, we all seem to think we can solve the crime before the protagonist, even though we’ve never had any training… So to promote Murder Island we decided to change that.
We started a recruitment campaign looking for armchair detectives, asking our audience “Could you catch a killer?”
Could you catch a killer?
Working with digital agency Unit 9 and a real-life detective, we created a series of interactive challenges, teaching regular people the skills they would really need to solve a crime.
Each ‘case file’ taught a different skill, with our detective calling and texting our trainees throughout to guide them through the evidence.
If our candidates successfully solved all the crimes, they earned a detective badge which they could share on social media.
Case closed
The campaign won a Webby award for best TV & Film website, beating tough internationally recognised competition with the likes of ‘The Witcher’ and ‘Star Wars’ amongst others, and won an FWA for ‘site of the day’
