Autotrader x Celebrity Great British Bake Off
Context
Autotrader partnered with Channel 4’s Bake Off franchise through a six-month sponsorship spanning The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up to Cancer, Bake Off: The Professionals, and all Great British Bake Off streaming content. To support the campaign, IMA was tasked with developing and producing a suite of branded broadcast idents that would seamlessly connect the Autotrader brand with one of the UK’s most culturally loved programmes. Launching alongside the new Celebrity Bake Off series in March, the creative featured playful miniature worlds filled with mouthwatering bakes, cars, and characters, delivering standout visibility across both linear TV and on-demand viewing.
Connection
The sponsorship was designed to build brand warmth, familiarity, and trust by aligning Autotrader with a programme audiences already know and love. Running across six months of Bake Off content, the campaign is expected to deliver 240 million impressions and reach 30% of UK adults an average of 15 times. By creating distinctive, memorable sponsorship idents that felt naturally at home within the Bake Off universe, IMA helped position Autotrader at the centre of viewers’ everyday entertainment moments — keeping the brand front of mind, driving platform traffic, and ultimately connecting more buyers with retailers.
Impact
- 9/10 Great prompted brand recall, with 9 out of 10 viewers identifying Autotrader as the sponsor.
- 90% Over 90% of viewers rated the idents as 3+ Stars. (C4 Benchmark is usually 80% over 3 stars so smashed through that.)
- 3 in 4 Viewers agreed that C4 & Autotrader were a great fit (26%pts above the norm.)
- 1 in 2 Viewers agreed they'd be more likely to consider using Autotrader (22%pts above the norm.)
