Cars go ‘dancing on ice’ with Fife Flyers in Kirkcaldy

The television advert for Fife Autocentre featured two players from Fife Flyers and was filmed at Fife Ice Arena in Kirkcaldy.

Fife Autocentre is one of the main sponsors of ice hockey team Fife Flyers – and it teamed up with players and Continental Tyres to work on a promotional piece at the Fife Ice Arena in Kirkcaldy.

It involved two Smart cars on ice carrying out the ultimate winter tyre test.

Richard Forrester, operations director at Fife Autocentre in Glenrothes, said: “Continental Tyres is one of our main suppliers and it was looking to promote winter tyres and how good they are on ice.

The television advert for Fife Autocentre was filmed at Fife Ice Arena in Kirkcaldy.

“We arranged to get two identical Smart cars – one with summer tyres and the other with winter tyres.

“The cars were provided by Mercedes in Dundee, one of the other sponsors of Fife Flyers, and we had two professional drivers from Mercedes on the day to take control on the ice.

“We also had local signwriters do the branding along the side of the cars.”

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Richard Forrester, operations director at Fife Autocentre, started the cars off.

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The company worked closely with Carol Johnstone, Fife Flyers commercial manager, to set up and shoot the unique on-ice video, which is now being aired during the hit televion skating competition hosted by Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby.

He continued: “We put one Fife Flyers player from last season in each of the cars with their hockey gear on.

“We brought in a film crew and filmed the cars doing certain tests to show the benefits of having winter tyres on your car.

“I start the cars at the very beginning and they go past me and do a loop round the rink before coming back to the finish line, all done on the ice.

“It was filmed in September and initially it was made as an advert for social media, although we always did have plans for it to be a television advert at some point. We thenhad the idea of waiting until Dancing on Ice came on, contacted STV and arranged a slot – it was good timing really.

“With the show being so popular, it has worked out really well. It was a good day and interesting to see how it was filmed – you had the cars going along with the film crew on sledges alongside to film them!”

Carol was delighted with the publicity for the sponsor and team.

She said: “It was quite challenging because we had never done anything like this before.

“We used players to tie in with the sponsorship, making it a bit more fun to watch.

“There was a lot of rehearsing – definitely a hands-on experience – to ensure we got the points delivered and we are delighted to be part of its success.

“Over all it was a fantastic innovative campaign.”