The Guardian yesterday announced a new campaign partnership with Channel 4 and media agency OMD, supporting the launch of Channel 4’s new three-part factual drama, Dirty Business, which reveals the scale of the UK sewage crisis.
Based on a decade-long investigation into England’s water companies, Dirty Business uncovers one of the biggest corporate and public health scandals in modern British history, says the Gaurdian. The series starring David Thewlis, Jason Watkins, Posy Sterling and Asim Chaudhry, tells the real stories of the whistleblowers and victims who say their lives have been destroyed after encountering sewage-polluted water.
Bringing Dirty Business to the top of the news agenda, this multi-channel collaboration spans digital, audio, video, online and print Guardian channels, the publisher continued. Launched today, Channel 4 has "polluted" the Guardian, taking over all print, homepage and podcast ad slots with hard-hitting facts about the scandal.
The Guardian’s branded content department, Guardian Labs, will also publish a series of sensitive interviews with the real people who inspired the show’s characters. Each article will feature a “reading-time sewage calculator”, using Guardian data to show readers how much sewage is released into UK waters in the time it takes to read.
Channel 4 has also unveiled a hard-hitting art installation – the Fountain of Filth– on London’s South Bank to mark the launch, which the Guardian says it is publicising with a satirical cartoon, and a video stream of the fountain in a Guardian “branded story”: a disruptive, mobile-only video ad format.
The Guardian claims it generated 3.5 million page views to its sewage and river pollution coverage over the last year, holding water companies and regulators to account.
Audiences can watch Dirty Business from last night on Channel 4 at 9pm. The series will air over three nights and be available to stream on Channel 4 on Demand.
Gabi Schuman, marketing manager, Channel 4: “This partnership was a no-brainer. With our Channel 4 remit to champion unheard voices, The Guardian was the perfect platform to continue our story off-platform, amplifying the real people behind the show and giving audiences a powerful reason to care and tune in. It was a natural synergy, enabling us to tell these stories in a trusted and credible way, while still driving momentum and narrative urgency.”
Leanne Young, client partner, OMD UK, said: “This is about more than launching a TV show – it’s a story about the human cost of the UK's water crisis. Holding truth to power is the Guardian's MO. Coupled with their environmental credentials and unrivalled journalistic integrity, they’re the perfect partners to help us land this incredibly important campaign to support the Dirty Business series.”
Imogen Fox, global chief advertising officer, said: “This partnership brings together two media brands united by shared values: public-interest journalism, social justice, and exposing wrongdoing hiding in plain sight. With its unrivalled scale, trust and investigative authority, the Guardian offers Channel 4 the only environment capable of carrying a campaign of this ambition, impact and urgency - putting the sewage crisis back where it belongs, at the top of the national agenda.”
The publisher says all branded content will be clearly labelled in line with the Guardian’s content funding guidelines.
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