There was also an London event produced for Toshiba TV for fans to win the chance to attend a special “Beyond the Screen” event or watch the question-and-answer session live through the official Doctor Who YouTube channel and streamed over Twitch.
“We have those fans and we want to show up for them. The beauty of all of the partnerships is that they will love all of that activity, but it also allows us to go broader and deeper with audiences who probably haven’t connected to the brand and onboard new fans and demonstrate its ‘pop-cultureness,’” explained Aylott.
A third partnership with Back Market, the global marketplace for refurbished technology, led to the creation and erection of a piece of art made from old devices to feature the images of Tennant and Gatwa and celebrate the regenerative ability of The Doctor to cheat death and become a whole new person, tying back into the brand’s own mission to renew old items.
Located on the South Bank in London over the second weekend of December, the art was in place to coincide with the third special, which saw the passing of the torch from Tennant to Gatwa as the lead star. The “Art of Regeneration” seven-foot-by-nine-foot anamorphic sculpture was handcrafted by Global Street Art and featured easter eggs from the series molded into the metal.
The activation was promoted by Words + Pixels with a cosplay fan event, as well as the reveal of the Doctor’s new Sonic Screwdriver device, to drive social and press activity, with over 80 pieces written about the work over the course of one week.
“We were quite keen to act bigger than we are in regards to the brands and partners that we want to work with,” explained Luke Forshaw, head of brand and marketing for Back Market U.K. “The opportunity to work with a property like Doctor Who felt too good to miss, especially given that the timing of situation fell before the Christmas window, which is great from a Doctor Who standpoint, with the Christmas Day scheduling, but also from a Back Market standpoint in terms of driving gifting sales: It’s huge for us.”
