Long Way Down for National Geographic
Pushbutton has designed and built an interactive portal to promote ‘Long Way Down’ a series of ten documentaries following Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on a 15,000 motorcycle trip from John O’Groats to Cape Town.
Long Way Down was a major plank in National Geographic Channel’s prime time schedule for the Spring 2008 season. The interactive was designed to both promote the series and help ‘lock in’ viewers for the full, ten show run.
The interactive was built around a cornerstone looping video, framed by several interactive content options that the viewer could select using the Sky remote.
An interactive map showed the Long Way Down route episode by episode, mapping the countries featured in each programme, and charting the distance remaining to Cape Town.
Additional interactive options included a fact ticker, guide to the equipment, the bikes, and interviews with the Charley and Ewan.
Pushbutton Managing Director, Paula Byrne, said “The Long Way Down skin for National Geographic channel shows interactive promotion of a major series at its best. The clever use of looping video and engaging interactive content is a text book example of top notch enhanced TV.”
