Case Study / Black Prince Holidays
Black Prince wanted people to know narrowboat holidays exist. We made a 28-minute film about one, built a giveaway around it, and handed Black Prince every email address that came in.
Entries collected
Views in the first month
Entries in the first 24 hours
Landing page conversion rate
The idea
There was no brief. Black Prince offered us a boat for four days on the Kennet and Avon, and we said yes because we had wanted to do a canal trip for years.
The giveaway was something we asked for. Partway through planning we went back to their team and asked whether they would put up a short break as a prize. Not because it would help the film, though it did.
A film gets watched, and then it is over. We wanted Black Prince to walk away holding something. So the offer was simple. Every entry requires an email address, and the whole list goes to them.
The email that started it
We had an idea we wanted to run by you.
Would Black Prince be open to giving away a short trip as part of the video? We'd run it through Gleam so viewers have to enter with their email, we can set it up so that for more entries they have to follow Black Prince on socials as well as ours, and we'd hand that email list straight over to them so they can use it for promotion.
Totally understand if it's not something they'd want to do. Just wanted to float it.
Chris
Sent eight days before we got on the boat. Black Prince said yes two days later.
The work
Four days on the Kennet and Avon in a sixty-foot metal tube moving at four miles an hour. Sara's parents came. The dog came. Nobody had ever driven a boat before.
Americans Try Narrowboating the UK for the First Time 28:16 Published June 14, 2026
01
Twenty-eight minutes, cut the way we cut everything else. The giveaway link sat in the first line of the description, so every person who finished the film knew there was something to do next.
02
We designed and built the entry page ourselves at chrisandsara.com/win, then sent it to Black Prince for approval before anything went public. Entering meant giving an email address and following them.
03
The newsletter carried it first. Instagram Stories from the boat while we were still on it. Then the film, then the winner announcement, which turned the close of the giveaway into its own moment.
The numbers
We soft-launched the giveaway to the newsletter only. No public announcement anywhere, no film yet. 75 people entered before there was anything to watch.
The film went live on June 14. Entries more than doubled inside a day, and then kept climbing for two more weeks.
75
189
733
Before the film
Newsletter only. No public announcement.
One day after
The film goes live with the link in the description.
At close
Two weeks later, the giveaway ends and the list goes to Black Prince.
Every one of them watched a canal boat holiday, wanted one, and typed in an email address to prove it.
97,925
Views on the film in its first month, and still climbing.
Entry figures from the giveaway dashboard. View figures from YouTube Analytics, June 14 to July 14, 2026.
What happened after
The film is evergreen. It will still be pulling views a year from now, the same way films we published years ago still pull them today. That is the reason a brand puts a trip on the table in the first place.
The giveaway added something the film could not do on its own. Every entry required an email address, and when it closed we handed all 733 of them to Black Prince. Not viewers. People who had asked for a canal boat holiday by name.
They used it straight away. They wrote their own email to everyone who had opted in and sent it themselves. The film keeps bringing people in. The list let Black Prince go straight to them.
One entrant did not wait
"Even though we didn't win, your video convinced us to book a trip with the company."From a subscriber, three days after the winner was announced. She lost, and booked anyway.
"Black Prince has been really impressed with the performance of the video. The quality of the film you produced is superb, and I've really appreciated your proactivity throughout."
Daniel Johnson
Daniel Johnson PR
On behalf of Black Prince Holidays