The challenge
ALK asked us to help boost sales of CoPilot Live 7 in O2 and T-Mobile stores across the UK with a creative news campaign.

What we did
To find the perfect celebrity voice for the new product, we commissioned research agency Tickbox to find out which of 13 regional accents people would find 'sexiest' for their sat nav system. The results showed an overwhelming preference for the 'Queen's English'.

Not long after the campaign began, headlines broke announcing that London Underground would no longer be recording with the distinctive 'Voice of the Tube', Emma Clarke.

Seizing the opportunity to hijack the national news agenda and link the brand with a received pronounciation accent familiar to millions of commuters, we convinced ALK to adopt Emma as the new voice of CoPilot Live 7.

Having put Emma's dulcet tones to all 168 sat nav instructions, we issued a press release announcing our coup.

The site was backed by the development of a 'voice of sat nav' microsite on the ALK website. Here consumers could download the newly voiced instructions as well as some cheeky spoofs, including advice for drivers to 'stop picking their noses'.

What we got
Over 55 regional radio stations covered our story the day it broke. Print coverage included The Times, Metro, Time Out, Evening Standard, Birmingham Post and Manchester Evening News.

Interest even reached Spain - a key market for CoPilot - with the story making front page of Elmundo.es!

Hits to the ALK website rose by 10 percent throughout the campaign. Also, according to O2, its XDA Orbit 2 smartphone with pre-loaded CoPilot 7 software became its best-selling Xda model.