Since 2009 Sunset+Vine has been the Royal Kennel Club’s (RKC) host broadcast partner, with the production company producing Channel 4’s coverage since 2010. This year saw the start of a new four year deal for Sunset+Vine and as well as pushing its production plan overall, it took a strong focus on digital and social content.

Over the four days of the competition Sunset+Vine produced 17 hours of programming for Channel 4 and More4, alongside 11 hours per day of live streaming on YouTube.

Produced on site at Birmingham’s NEC, a 150-strong production team delivered the event, supported by three outside broadcast trucks, 22 cameras and more than 15,000 metres of cable.

Step up and innovate

Sunset+Vine’s Will Godsiff, senior digital strategist commented on the overall Crufts digital strategy and operations. “We’re always trying to step up and innovate. The broadcast steals the headlines slightly and obviously there’s a massive activation on Channel 4, but our digital activation has always been a key part of our contract with Crufts, and maybe that slightly flies under the radar.

“We obviously create video content for the RKC [at Crufts], but we manage their YouTube channel and their TikTok account year round,” says Godsiff. “Actually when they parted ways with the BBC, their very first activation was on YouTube, which is where we came in, and year on year, this has grown out of just live streaming to a huge operation. We stream all four days of the main arena to the cross YouTube.”

The digital and social team does fast turnaround short form clipping and full event publication all across social channels. Adds Godsiff: “There’s so much going on at Crufts. There’s the obedience competition, and we stream all four days of that via a remote solution where we have a camera team that are sending signal back to Hammersmith, and we add live graphics and do stream management back from our office in Hammersmith. But simultaneously, as well as our remote Hammersmith team, we’ve got a large digital team on site at Crufts working beside the broadcast team. We’ve got a digital crew of producers, editors, and streaming technicians.”

Year-round content

Godsiff’s team begins work on Crufts in the November preceding the competition every year, which is when breeders can apply to show their dogs at the competition, and when the Kennel Club releases tickets.

“We create content year-round for all the Kennel Club’s different social pages. So it’s a four day event, but for the digital team, it’s a year long collaborative effort with the Royal Kennel Club and Crufts themselves,” says Godsiff.

On the strategy for the digital content, Godsiff says, “ultimately on the digital side, we’re always trying to have a lot of fun”.

He notes that while Crufts and the Kennel Club in the past have had more of a traditional reputation, content for digital tends to be focused on more entertainment and educational content.

“These platforms develop and the audiences and their consumption habits change, so we’re always trying to update and innovate our content strategies in support of Crufts’ wider goals, which is ultimately selling tickets and making revenue. This year they set up a new Crufts Club so that anyone with a dog can sign up and receive expert advice and discounts – it’s a subscription package model – so they’re developing that and we are continuing to develop our output accordingly.

“I think that the work that we’re doing on short form is a key way for [the Kennel Club] to branch out and to actually showcase Crufts. It’s a really fun event,” he adds.

Unique culture

Godsiff continues: “Crufts has a very unique culture. It straddles entertainment and sport. I think what I’ve always tried to do is make sure that we’re creating the potential for fun cultural crossovers that cut through an excessive amount of noise across all the different platforms, and we’re active for the Kennel Club on every platform.”

That entertainment strategy is important, notes Godsiff. “In aid of that we started making more fun content. I think our content sits well online and we always try and create that sort of eclectic mix of brain rot, and this year we’ve expanded into educational content, which has performed really, really well for the Crufts pages.”

The main arena feed from the host broadcast goes out on the Crufts YouTube channel, but content from the digital side also crosses over into that main broadcast. Says Godsiff: “The content that we are making for digital, and particularly some of the rushes and exports, can feed back into the host broadcast and vice versa. We all sit across the same system and whilst we’re working on different elements, there’s an awful lot of sharing, creating this one giant content hub that everyone can pull out from and push into.”