AN ASTRAL WAKE PRODUCTIONS CASE STUDY
CLIENT: NAPOLEON HOME COMFORT
How Astral Wake created a sitcom-style ad campaign and turned paid interruption into owned attention.
The Challenge: People Skip Ads, But Watch Stories
Napoleon has earned generational trust in the world of quality, long-lasting grills, fireplaces, and home comfort products. The demographic owns Napoleon products because their dad or grandfather had one, and they won’t settle for anything else at home.
Their retail store, Napoleon Home Comfort, came to us looking for a solution that would help them stand out in a crowded category and connect with their target audience, particularly male Gen-X-aged homeowners across streaming and social platforms, without relying on forgettable, showroom-based ads.
And while so many companies only claim to be open to something different, Napoleon truly was and gave us the green light to create something special.
INDUSTRY
Manufacturing
PRODUCTS
Grills (gas & charcoal), Fireplaces, Furnaces, Air Conditioners, Ductless Systems, Patio Heaters, Fire Pits, Home Decor
Solution: We Built A Show Instead Of An Ad
Most ads vanish when the spending stops. We sought to do something better for Napoleon Home Comfort. We set out to create an episodic campaign that would build an audience that grows through repeat viewing and organic distribution.
This requires a shift in thinking from both the agency and the brand. “Let’s stop looking at people as targets and start treating them like an audience. And let’s shift from interruption to attraction and retention.”
From there, we came up with “A Napoleon Neighbour”, a story-driven video ad campaign, created to go beyond short-term advertising and build a lasting brand asset. Instead of relying on standalone ads, the campaign offered episodic content that audiences could revisit, fostering familiarity, trust, and long-term brand recall.
Traditional advertising rents attention by interrupting it. This campaign would do the opposite. It would build owned attention through entertainment. This would create:
Momentum
Retention
Long-term brand value
“Most advertising still behaves like it has three seconds to live. It’s loud, transactional, and instantly forgettable. But nostalgia works differently,”
said Bob Charters, Founder of Astral Wake Productions.
“It slows people down. It creates familiarity before persuasion. So instead of producing another campaign designed to interrupt homeowners, we built a show designed to feel familiar, unfold over episodes, and invite viewers back.”
The Approach: A Deliberate Shift From Interruption-Based Advertising
The main goal was to improve brand awareness in depth, not just reach. The campaign sought to balance immediate market impact with long-term brand growth by:
Reaching a wide, qualified audience across different platforms
Holding attention through storytelling and episodic continuity
Strengthening brand recall with future buyers
Supporting downstream performance without using hard- sell tactics
Brand awareness is not about being seen, it’s about being remembered. In the context of the 95/5 rule, this campaign was designed to do both: capture in-market demand with clear, timely signals while simultaneously building long-term memory recall structures with the 95 percent of
the audience not yet buying.
“Meta was the billboard that created awareness. YouTube was the theatre that people would watch us in. Crave added local authority that validated the concept.”
The Result: Napoleon Stopped Renting Attention & Started Owning an Audience
What resulted was not a temporary ad moment, but a branded, multi-platform campaign people chose to tune in to watch.
Simply put, it performed like entertainment, not advertising.
In an era of scrolling and skippable ads, this campaign proves that storytelling built for performance can create measurable business impact.
YouTube
Our success here illustrates how episodic video can meet the needs of in-market buyers while also building mental presence with a much larger audience outside the market, creating immediate impact while adding value over time.
Most campaigns earn little organic reach relative to paid distribution. Because this was entertainment-forward, the algorithms promoted it for free.
Paid Views: ~1.1 Million (The Reach we bought)Organic Views: ~1.0 Million (The Reach we earned for free)The ROI: For every 1 view the client paid for, they earned 1
free view.META (FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM)
- Click-Through Rate peaked at 2.62%
- More than 2X the retail industry average of ~1.2%
YOUTUBE (PAID)
- Exceptional Return on Attention
- On average, 32% watched to 100%
TIKTOK (ORGANIC)
- 400,000+ impressions
- Algorithm promoted entertainment campaign organically
YOUTUBE (ORGANIC)
- Nearly 1:1 earned-to-paid views
- Introduced a new generation to Napoleon products
3x growth from Episode 1 to Episode 12.
60%
watched at least 25%
40%
watched 50%
36%
watched 75%
32%
watched 100%
Episode 3 reached a 58.5% full-video completion rate.
Why this matters:
Industry-standard YouTube ad completion is under 15%.
This content held attention at 3–4x that level.
The campaign earned minutes of attention at scale, not just exposure.
Let’s Create Something Different Together
Think of how typical product placement works on TV. You’re watching your favourite show, and then suddenly, someone’s product is shoehorned into the program. It takes you out of it.
But if you go the other way, you start with the brand, and build a show around it, now you’re inviting people in.
Today, every brand has their own distribution channels, but we’re still advertising like we need to ask permission to be on someone else’s show– and like we need to interrupt instead of engage.
Stop renting attention and start building an audience. Astral Wake builds branded social shows and series-based advertainment designed to earn attention across the channels you already own.
Want results like this? We will build your audience engine next.