Last year, Advance Auto Parts ran a project looking for new and exciting concepts to run on their social channels to engage with their audience, and one idea that stuck out was to take their normal "how-to" content and turn it into an ongoing campaign where Advance could own a day of the week on social media. That led us to Fix-It Fridays. Fix-It Fridays will see Advance Auto Parts posting serialized how-to content every other Friday of the month, and help audiences regularly get quality DIY-friendly content for all their automotive needs. We're now looking for a filmmaker who can take this concept to the next level by producing a socially engaging pilot program that shows just how Advance can own Fridays.
The goal of this project is to create six 1-2 minute episodic explainer videos to bring Fix-It Fridays to life on Advance Auto Parts' social channels, primarily YouTube and Instagram. You'll also need to create one cutdown per episode that can be used as a recap or a teaser for additional episodes. In terms of the content, the six episodes should find a clever and memorable way to educate and entertain, covering different topics in each episode and leading with DIY educational information, before ultimately driving the audience to go to an Advance Auto Parts stores or their website to find all their automotive products and needs. This will plug into Advance's 2026 goal to "Engage. Educate. Amplify."
When it comes to what topics to cover in the episodes, this can include small tasks like how to change your oil or how to change a tire, and can get into bigger endeavors like brake pad repairs and troubleshooting your car's overheating. We are really curious to see what you think may be the most often searched for when it comes to DIY car fixes, and then seeing how you can creatively make the topics more engaging with your show format. Whatever topic you do decide to cover, it will be important that your instructions are accurate and safe, so while the Advance team can verify things in pre-production, we are looking for someone on your team to have some automotive expertise.
In terms of the creative, we are primarily looking for live-action concepts, but we are also open to something that incorporates motion graphics, stop-motion, or even 2D or 3D animation. Your approach should be primarily educational, but that doesn't mean it can't be entertainment-forward and wildly outrageous. Social is about grabbing someone's attention right away, after all, so we really want to hook people in a fresh way, beyond what they'd expect from a traditional car maintenance video. Think about an out-of-the-box way to hook DIYers and young mechanics. Think about how you might even engage a younger audience that's just beginning to drive. What allows you to deliver easily digestible and entertaining content, while still telling them what they need to know to fix their cars themselves? Can we - for example - turn the whole thing into a social-forward game show, where different contestants compete in each video, and have the whole thing filmed selfie-style on the go? Or can we make it humorous, with weird and wacky DIY approaches gone wrong, followed up by showing the right way to do something? There's a lot of different ways to do this, and we want to feel surprised and delighted when we see yours.
Since we will be looking for the episodes to be in both 16x9 for YouTube and 9x16 for Instagram and Facebook, we will want to find efficiencies in filming everything for both aspect ratios at once, or make sure there is a plan in place for how you may reformat the footage specifically for the social forward 9x16 versions. Since these videos are primarily for social, you can film them on a professional camera or even on your smartphone if you think the style and look would be more fitting for your overall concept. We would like to primarily see executions that are taking place outside of an Advance storefront and while there may be the opportunity to film at a storefront if it is fitting and needed for your concept, we would encourage you to think more of places like an auto body shop, someone's personal garage or driveway, a parking lot, or even inside the car. Wherever you choose to film, your location should feel relevant to the automotive space and allow for the proper instructions to be explained and visually appealing.
In terms of talent, we would avoid having a single host (or hosts) running every episode; we don't want the series to hinge on one person, and we want the flexibility to bring in other talent when we need it, or to shake up the format. That doesn't mean you can't have talent appear in more than one episode, and you can certainly have different individuals function in a host-type role, if that makes sense for the format. In terms of the actual casting, talent should be diverse and fitting to an older Gen-Z or younger millennial, while being believable as someone who would work on their own car. If your approach does include a customer or an Advance team member on camera, they'll need to be talent that you cast. Any actor that you cast as an Advance team member does not need to be a mechanic by any means, but if providing any kind of service, they'll need to be familiar with properly performing the service. Advance will provide information about the general procedures that should be followed when performing each service on camera, and they will provide thorough safety guidelines. Any team members will be required to wear the Advance team member shirt and a nametag, which Advance will also provide, but your budget must include the team members' pants, shoes, and belt, as well as wardrobe for anyone else shown in the videos. Open to using the same talent across multiple videos per filmmaking team.
We want the series to feel evergreen - not necessarily tied to any season, event, holiday, or sale - but you'll also want your creative approach to be flexible and refreshable, allowing Advance to include season or product-specific episodes in the future. Importantly, you should consider this project as the pilot for a longer campaign or series. Once the greenlit team has created the content for June-August, there's the potential for Advance to evaluate the results and the performance, and then greenlight the same team for the remainder of the calendar year.
As a lead-in to the episodes, we also want you to create a single :02-:05 intro title card that can be used with every episode to establish "Fix-It Fridays" and become a recognizable visual cue for viewers to tune in for the repeatable content. This can be something like a cheesy and fun television intro, or it could be a quick, but visually compelling graphic with some kind of an earworm jingle. You should keep in mind this intro needs to pair with all Fix-It Friday videos now and in the future, so it should not have specific ties to any one person or video, although we will want the potential to update it as needed. You will need to provide all organized project files for the intro video to be adapted for future use.
When creating any visuals, you should use the provided logo for each brand, though in terms of colors and style, you should focus on the Advance Brand Guidelines and use the brand colors sparingly.
Check out more information in the Background, and for any questions or other project updates, check out the Project Forum.
DELIVERABLES: There are 26 total video assets.
EXPECTED TIMELINE: HERE
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AI USAGE: You may not use AI generated visual or audio assets in your final content. However, for the purposes of your pitch and pre-production materials, you are welcome to use generative AI to create visuals, storyboards, animatics, proofs-of-concept, etc. that might help the Sponsor understand your vision for creating the final content. Additionally, assistive AI tools (e.g. object removal, compositing, color grading, sound mixing, subtitling, etc.) may be used in post-production to supplement your workflow. Please keep record of any AI usage deployed in your submissions in the event that the Sponsor requests AI disclosures. If you have questions about any specific usage or tool, please ask your Tongal producer.
By participating in this project, creators acknowledge that the Sponsor is under no obligation to greenlight a submission. Though most projects do move forward, we'll notify you in the event the Sponsor decides not to fund any submissions via the Project Forum. Regardless of the result, all submissions will be reviewed and evaluated by the Sponsor and project team.
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