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A note before we start
This project has nothing to do with the Invictus Games founded by Prince Harry. It predates that by several years. The name came first from Paco Rabanne's Invictus fragrance - and this is the story of the digital campaign built around it.
The campaign
The Invictus Award was an international reality-style sporting competition - think America's Next Top Model, but built around extreme physical challenges and elite amateur athletes. Sponsored by Paco Rabanne's Invictus fragrance in partnership with Men's Health magazine, the competition challenged contestants from around the world to conquer trials including triathlons, jet-skiing and desert racing.
The ultimate winner received a cash prize to invest in a philanthropic or sporting project, a cover feature on Men's Health, and the title of face of the Invictus fragrance campaign.
Hearst Publishing's creative services division had pitched the concept to Paco Rabanne as a brand content campaign - and they needed a digital home worthy of it.
What we built
Bravand designed and built a microsite that did several things at once. Seven athlete profiles, built to be flashy and hyped - showcasing the competitors and building audience investment in the competition. Streamed episodes of the show as they dropped. Online voting so the audience could have a say. And a social feed that aggregated each athlete's posts but cross-referenced them against the campaign hashtag, pulling through only content specifically about the Invictus Award - keeping the feed clean and on-brand.
Why it mattered at the time
It's worth saying: episode streaming, integrated social feeds with hashtag filtering, online audience voting, athlete profile hubs - none of this was particularly routine when this project was built. It was genuinely new territory, and required both technical ambition and a willingness to build things that hadn't really been done before in a brand content context.
The client loved it. And Bravand loved building it.
Looking to build a digital campaign around a brand content partnership?
We've been doing this kind of work for a long time - before it was easy. Get in touch with the Bravand team.
The team
