Shell

Shell V-Power: Feel the Fuel

An Ultimate VIP road trip in Ferraris and BMW M cars, creators feeling the fuel, and a live podcast at the F1 Match Party.

Client: Shell South Africa
Audience: F1 fans, car enthusiasts, premium fuel users
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok
Route: Joburg to Cape Town and the Garden Route
Disciplines: Influencer Marketing, Experiential, Content

The case

The challenge

Ignite excitement and drive awareness of Shell V-Power's high-performance innovation by connecting emotionally with South African F1 fans, car enthusiasts and premium fuel users, and position V-Power not just as fuel but as a premium lifestyle choice.

The insight

F1 technology is easy to admire and hard to feel. The quickest way to make a fuel's performance personal is to put people behind the wheel of the cars it was made for, and let them tell it in their own words.

The idea

Feel the Fuel ran as a sequence. Creators were invited with a Shell V-Power unboxing, got ready on camera, then joined the Ultimate VIP Experience: a road trip in Ferraris and BMW M cars from Joburg through Bloemfontein and the Karoo to Cape Town, and along the Garden Route via Mossel Bay and Knysna. It finished live on the racetrack at the F1 Match Party, with the #YellowCouch podcast and the influencer squad interviewing fans.

The execution

Every one of these was handled in-house, on the same brief.

Creator casting across F1, car and lifestyle audiences

Branded unboxing invitations

The Ultimate VIP Experience road trip

GRWM, unboxing and day-by-day road trip content

#YellowCouch podcast at the F1 Match Party

Fan interviews on race day

Campaign reporting

What it delivered

The result

Unique users reachedFrom a potential audience of 8.1 million.: 5.85M
ImpressionsAcross Meta and TikTok.: 4.1M
ViewsOn creator, road trip and podcast content.: 3.67M
EngagementsPeople joining in, not just watching.: 310K
Engagement rateOn content built to be shared.: 4.7%
Earned media valueAs reported for the campaign.: R2.1M

Figures as published in the campaign's awards entry.

Four moments

How it ran

The invitation

A red box to open on camera

It started with an unboxing. Creators opened their Shell V-Power invitation to the Ultimate VIP Experience on camera, so their audiences were in on the trip from the first moment.

Get ready

Get ready with me

Get-ready-with-me content turned packing for the trip into the trailer for it: “Get ready with me because we gonna be #FeelingTheFuel with @shell_southafrica in the Ultimate VIP Experience.”

#FeelTheFuel
#FeelItAll
#ShellVPower

The road trip

The Ultimate VIP Experience

Ferraris and BMW M cars, running on Shell V-Power, took the squad from Joburg through Bloemfontein and the Karoo to Cape Town, then along the Garden Route via Mossel Bay and Knysna. Every stop became content, posted day by day as it happened.

Joburg
Bloemfontein
Karoo
Cape Town
Mossel Bay
Knysna

The Shell V-Power road trip route map, from Joburg to Cape Town and the Garden Route — The route

Race day

#YellowCouch, live at the F1 Match Party

The Feel the Fuel podcast went live on the racetrack at the F1 Match Party, hosted by Andile Ncube, Lufefe Mayekiso, Car Scene and Mpho Maboi in a four-seat panel: road trip stories, behind-the-scenes moments and conversations with Shell's leaders on the vision behind Feel the Fuel. Around them, the influencer squad worked the crowd, asking fans how they were feeling the fuel.