The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2022–2023
Channel 4 revives Smash Hits magazine to launch Derry Girls' final series
To launch the final series of Derry Girls, Channel 4 revived the 90s teen magazine Smash Hits as a 28-page one-off written in the show's voice.
Channel 4
What it had to solve
Channel 4 needed to launch the final series of Derry Girls, a cult comedy set in 1990s Northern Ireland. The show's comedy lives in period detail, so the launch had to feel as authentic as the world it came from.
How it works
Derry Girls is a cult comedy set in 1990s Northern Ireland, and its final series had to launch to an audience whose love of the show is inseparable from its period detail. Channel 4's answer was to promote the show with the media of the era itself — not an ad about the 90s, but a real piece of the 90s.
The broadcaster revived Smash Hits, the teen magazine the show's characters would have read, for a one-off, bespoke special. Working with the editor of the original magazine, Channel 4 filled 28 pages with specially shot, written and designed 90s-style content — fashion shoots, how-to dance moves, advice columns and record reviews — all featuring or written in the voice of the main characters.
The result was a magazine that looked and felt exactly as Smash Hits did 25 years earlier, but with a Derry Girls spin: an authentic artefact that sat naturally inside the show's world and gave fans a tangible piece of it. The work entered the D&AD awards archive as a writing-for-advertising case.
Why it lands
- The magazine was the show's own media: Smash Hits is precisely what Derry Girls characters would have read, so the promotion extended the fiction instead of interrupting it.
- Bringing back the real magazine, with its real editor, gave the issue an authenticity that a pastiche could not fake.
- A one-off physical object gave fans something to hold and keep, turning the launch into a collectible moment.
- Writing 28 pages of genuine 90s content in the characters' voices let the show's comedy travel beyond the screen.
What it did
The launch became a collectible piece of the show's world: a real Smash Hits issue, produced with the original magazine's editor, that looked and felt exactly like the magazine 25 years earlier — but with a Derry Girls spin. The work is archived by D&AD as writing-for-advertising.
What you can take
Promote a period show with the period's own media: reviving the real magazine the characters would have consumed turns a launch into an artefact the audience can hold before they watch.
Since then
The one-off Smash Hits special accompanied the launch of Derry Girls' final series and sits in the D&AD awards archive as a writing-for-advertising case — promotion built from the show's own period detail rather than wrapped around it.
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