Let’s celebrate! 40th home-coming anniversary
A multi award-winning marketing campaign (2010)
The challenge:
The museum and marketing teams could have simply marked the anniversary with a photo opportunity, but we saw an opportunity to work closely together to celebrate the event, capturing people’s memories of the historic ship’s return to Bristol, and to create and maximise opportunities.
Approach:
I exploited the 1970s theme, which chimed with the start of the recession and demand for nostalgia. Through advanced planning, I gained early high-level buy-in from national, regional and local media, and persuaded animators to produce copyright-free versions of their film for third-party broadcast and digital use. The team used a logo, devised by Peloton, of IK Brunel in a John Travolta style dance pose for promotional materials including beer mats and fridge magnets.
Results:
The campaign’s PR highlights included extensive national BBC news coverage, the BBC Radio 4 Broadcasting House interview with HRH Duke of Edinburgh, a 30-minute documentary on BBC iPlayer and BBC Points West region, a celebratory ‘1970s Day’ on BBC Radio Bristol, plus regular features in the year leading to the anniversary and daily coverage in the last eight days on BBC Points West and ITV Westcountry. It delivered a 13,000 increase in visitors and £200,000 (11%) revenue boost, achieving national and local award recognition.