The client
Britain's "Lion King", on camera and off.
Reece Oliver is a British showjumper and conservationist. The press dubbed him "Britain's Lion King." He runs the Strelley Wildlife Conservation Facility on the edge of Nottingham. There he cares for two African lions, Rocky and Rora, rescued as cubs from a Czech circus. He looks after Rogue, a Canadian puma saved from the illegal pet trade, rescued Humboldt penguins, a troop of squirrel monkeys and a tapir called Mr T. His story has been covered by the BBC, ITV's Britain's Tiger Kings — On the Trail with Ross Kemp, Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over and This Morning.
The challenge: press attention is rented. An audience is owned.
National TV coverage comes in bursts and disappears just as fast. Between the headlines, the sanctuary's day-to-day story went untold: the rescues, the care, the cost, the chaos. Content is the thing that always slips down the list when you're busy looking after lions. A remarkable story with no consistent way to tell it doesn't grow an audience. It just goes quiet.
How we worked
We embedded. It's the same crew every visit, so nobody re-explains the animals, the site or the mission each time we arrive. We know which lion plays up for the camera and where the light falls in the enclosure at 4pm. From a single filming session we capture enough for four videos. One is a long-form YouTube episode to carry the storytelling. The rest is a run of short-form clips to keep the channel alive in between. Every day on site works as hard as it possibly can.
Reece is the face of all of it, because faces beat logos every time. His expertise is delivered at the fence line, mid-feed and unscripted. That is what makes people subscribe and stay.
The result
The channel grew past 1,000 subscribers, with Living With Lions among the standout episodes. More importantly, the sanctuary now owns a library of content that keeps working between press cycles. It raises awareness, deepens engagement and supports the sanctuary's mission over time, instead of expiring the week it's posted.
