Millions of views and battles in the comment sections: FAVBET turns supporting the UA Army into a social media trend

It’s been two months since “Pimp the Ride for the AFU” by FAVBET and FAVBET Foundation started supplying upgraded cars to combat units and motivating Ukrainians to donate more for the Army needs. With the project nearing a milestone of 5 out of 10 cars, the project’s team explained why they decided to turn the charity initiative into a show.

“Hey, I put 100 hryvnias in that car!”

Calls for helping the military have become commonplace. Large funds can still raise millions in a matter of days, but the general picture is that the needs of the army are growing, but the pace of donations is not. That’s why FAVBET decided to shake things up and turned its fundraising campaign into a TV show inspired by the MTV’s hit series “Pimp my Ride” with an entertaining host, dynamic edits and a healthy dose of humor.

“We pimp one ride in one episode of the show, Xzibit would approve,” says Dmytro Toporkov, the project’s creative manager, “The crew and I always balance between showing the upgrade in a fun and exciting way, but not losing sight of the serious goal at hand. Because inside the fun wrapper, we have real support for those who are now saving our country.”

According to Dmytro, this format solves two important tasks. The first one is to give feedback to donators so that they see how their donations are not just used for some abstract needs, but stand right there before their eyes, painted in camouflage and ready to scare the orcs. The second one is to go viral across social networks in order to attract as large an audience as possible to the campaign and to generally make the society better aware of how important supporting the Army really is.

And the project handles both tasks perfectly. The first episode of the show where the team upgraded the Mitsubishi L200 pickup truck has already exceeded 13,000 views on YouTube, with the episode’s teaser on TikTok amassing 2.1 million views and several hundred comments full of jokes, criticism, and heated discussions. And it's cool, because it means that Ukrainians care.

Meanwhile, the show’s second episode is already on YouTube. This time, the team was charged with a task of upgrading Nissan X-Trail for a secret unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And this is a very secret link to it - https://youtu.be/OltYfigdWG4

Behind the Scenes

The project’s creative manager says that there’s lots of work of many people going into each new episode of the show. The ones responsible for finding, purchasing and delivering the vehicles are the Favbet Foundation. Since the beginning of the war, the Foundation’s team have been buying vehicles for our army, so they have already perfect the supply chain and are now doing a brilliant job.

The car is pimped by Ukraine’s own West Coast Customs – NoMotors. FAVBET and NoMotors began cooperation back in 2021 with the creation of a cool FAVBET-branded drift car that took part in tournaments across Ukraine. However, the full-scale invasion had put racing on hold, and the drift cars were replaced by vehicles for the Armed Forces.

After the car is delivered to the NoMotors workshop, the preparation process begins: diagnostics, search for the necessary spare parts, repair and installation of additional equipment. The latter is one of the features of the show with the team trying to make each car unique and adapted to the tasks of a particular unit. For some they install night vision, for some (spoilers incoming) – an additional frame and benches or a turret for a machine gun. On average, a full upgrade takes about 10-14 days.

RPK Production are the ones responsible for the beautiful picture and cool editing. The filming process goes in parallel with the repair. While the parts are being delivered, they shoot an intro and a test drive. As soon as the repair begins, they move into the workshop. When the car is ready, the team shoots final presentation before sending the car to the frontlines. The team spends on average three days on one episode of the show.

The key people in the frame are the actor and FAVBET ambassador Yevhen Yanovych and the founder of NoMotors Serhiy Kremenets. While for Zhenya it is usual to be in the frame, for Serhiy it has been a completely new experience.

The show goes on

“Pimp the Ride for the AFU” has raised funds for 5 cars. Three of them are already delivered to the military, while mechanics are working on two more. There is still a lot of work ahead, but FAVBET’s team is sure that “Everything will be Ukraine!”