Driving business at Jazz@FutureInns and establishing brand awareness in the region
Jazz@ Future Inns, attached to the new Bristol hotel, opened in 2009. As part of JBP’s brief to raise awareness for the Future Inns brand and drive bookings to the three hotels in Bristol, Cardiff and Plymouth, JBP devised and delivered a 6-month PR campaign named Future Of Jazz – a search to find the best young jazz talent that the South West had to offer – to establish the jazz club in the region, drive ticket sales to the club and raise the brand profile of the three Future Inns hotels.
Activity
Strategic planning was central to the roll out of the campaign. In January 2010, JBP set the wheels in motion for the competition launch. This involved developing a media plan, securing Venue magazine as a media partner, developing entry and web materials, creating a £5k prize package and securing Andy Sheppard – a well known jazz artist in Bristol – to be a mentor for the winning act.
Media relations was core to the campaign delivery. When the competition launched in February, JBP secured over 15 pieces of coverage across the South West regional media. From the Bristol Evening Post to This is Cornwall and the South Wales Echo, the coverage focused predominantly on the areas served by the three Future Inns hotels.
Recognising that media coverage alone would not directly drive entries, JBP also developed a database of jazz organisations in the South West. From the National Jazz Youth Collective to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, the campaign reached out to the targeted organisations to drive entrants.
Social media also played a crucial role, helping reach out to targeted jazz musicians via a Jazz@FutureInns Twitter page.
The campaign achieved an additional 500 unique users to the Future Inns website in the week of the competition launching. A quality group of entries were shortlisted to four acts that battled it out in a semi finals gig in May before two were handpicked to perform at the finals event in June. Both the shortlist and the winner announcements created news hooks to enable JBP to secure further press coverage for the competition and raise the profile of the Future Inns brand.
Results
- Secured 23 pieces of coverage across Cardiff/Bristol and Plymouth media
- Secured a partnership with Venue magazine
- Achieved 500 extra unique users to the Future Inns website in the week of the competition launching
- More than 100 jazz musicians downloaded the entry form and expressed an interest in performing at Jazz@FutureInns