ABOUT

We asked South Africa’s top racing driver, Gugu Zulu to wager his friend, two-time Formula One World Champion, Mika Hakkinen. The wager was that Gugu could train a person with absolutely zero racing experience, to drive a lap of Kyalami within 5 seconds of Mika’s best lap time. The person he chose was Vusi Thembekwayo - businessman and public speaker.

THE CAMPAIGN
In May 2015, Johnnie Walker launched the Walker Wager campaign nationally. A wager was made between South Africa’s top racing driver, Gugu Zulu and his friend, two-time Formula 1 World Champion, Mika Hakkinen. The wage? That Gugu could train a person with absolutely zero racing experience, to drive a lap of Kyalami within 5 seconds of Mika’s best lap time. The person he chose was Vusi Thembekwayo - a businessman and public speaker.

THE WEBISODES
From the moment Mika accepted the wager, the real work began. We had to train Vusi to become a racing driver in just 7 days. So we had to do some pretty extreme things to get him up to speed. This made for 3 gripping webisodes. The 4th webisode featured the final race with the big man himself, Mika Hakkinen. The full film was broadcast into the homes of 50m South Africans on national TV.

THE SITE
The Walker Wager campaign site allowed all of South Africa to watch Vusi beat Mika in the real-world wager and follow the wager through a live aggregated social feed and photo narrative.