Case Study / Tourisme Cantons-de-l'Est

564,748 people found this bike route in two weeks. Almost none of them were our audience.

The Véloroute Gourmande is a 235-kilometer cycling route between Montréal and Sherbrooke with more than 120 places to eat along the way. That's a hard thing to sell in a photo. One picture shows you one lunch, and a map just shows a line across Quebec. Tourisme Cantons-de-l'Est needed people in the US and Canada to see what five days on it actually looks like, so we rode the whole route and filmed it, with our dog in a trailer behind Sara.

Cycling the Véloroute Gourmande through Quebec's Eastern Townships
87.9%

First-time viewers on the film

5.0%

Thumbnail click-through rate

21,217

Shares on the Reel

65.8%

Of watch time on a TV

The route we rode

235 km 146 miles · Montréal to Sherbrooke

Montréal Start Brossard Chambly Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu Mont Saint-Grégoire Farnham Granby Bromont Waterloo Eastman Magog North Hatley Sherbrooke Finish Montréal Start Brossard Chambly Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu Mont Saint-Grégoire Farnham Granby Bromont Waterloo Eastman Magog North Hatley Sherbrooke Finish

Day 1

17km

Day 2

41km

Day 3

65km

Day 4

62km

Day 5

50km

Deliverable 01

The film

Published August 30, 2026

They hired us for one long-form film and one Reel. We shot it over five days in June, riding from Montréal to Sherbrooke.

It went up as a YouTube collaboration with the Véloroute Gourmande channel. The film lives on ours, but it appears on their page under their name and they can pull the analytics themselves, which means nobody has to email us for a screenshot every time someone upstairs wants a number.

YouTube put the thumbnail in front of people 756,100 times in the first two weeks, and 94% of that was the algorithm deciding to, not anyone buying placement. Almost nine in ten people who clicked had never seen our channel, and two thirds of the time they spent watching happened on a television.

Watch the film
Cycling the Véloroute Gourmande through Québec

Deliverable 02

The Reel

Published September 2, 2026

Fifty-six seconds, published as an Instagram collab so it landed on their account and ours at the same moment with both names on it. Nobody put money behind it, so everything here is organic.

It reached 457,848 views, but the number we'd point at is 21,217 shares, with another 8,055 saves behind it. Of everyone who liked, shared, saved or commented, 99.4% don't follow us.

Their team watched it travel that far on its own and came back asking to put ad spend behind it.

Watch the Reel
View this Reel on Instagram

The numbers

Two weeks in.

These cover the first two weeks after each piece went out, pulled from YouTube Studio and Instagram on September 12. Both are still climbing.

The film YouTube, published August 30

106,900

Views

52,000

People who watched

756,100

Times the thumbnail was shown

5.0%

Click-through rate

The Reel Instagram, published September 2

457,848

Views

371,868

People reached

21,217

Shares

8,055

Saves

YouTube Studio and Instagram insights, September 12, 2026.

What they said

“I really appreciate your flexibility and how quickly you've handled everything. It's really easy working with you guys.”

Camille Gagnon

Tourism Product Coordinator, Tourisme Cantons-de-l'Est

Work with us

Have something worth filming?

We make long-form films about the thing you want people to notice, and short-form to get them there. Tell us what you're working on and we'll tell you what we'd make.

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