Campaign: Putting Sea Containers on the Map
Client: ARCHLANE LTD PR Team: Golden Goose PR; Miki Haines-Sanger, Zoe Sobol, Katie Hancock and Harriet Vocking Timing: March-Jubilee 2012 Budget: £118,000

Overview

ARCHLANE, the owners of Sea Containers, a 70s office building on London's South Bank, wanted to gain public attention over the Jubilee period as the property is redeveloped into a luxury hotel and offices. Briefed in February, Golden Goose PR was asked to create a campaign that would fulfil the following objectives.

Objectives

• Draw interest from ABC1 potential tenants and guests.
• Build anticipation for the Sea Containers hotel and offices opening in 2013.
• Tap into the spirit of the nation for the Jubilee - outshining other commercial property developments on the South Bank.

Strategy and implementation

GGPR had the idea to blow up the most recognisable Silver Jubilee balcony image originally featured in the Daily Telegraph, and cover the face of the building whilst construction work happened behind it.

Not only would this be the world's largest photo of the Royal Family, but it was a talking point for the progress of Britain from 1977 until today – a key period for the South Bank.

The sheer scale of the wrap meant we had to put it into production at least six weeks before the reveal, with the final image being rigged over five days. We had to move fast.

There was a lot of red tape to get through, but using Dn&Co's detailed CGIs and by establishing a strong relationship with the press office at the Palace, we received notice of 'no objection' and approval from the Jubilee Flotilla committee in time to go to print.

The earliest date that we could begin the reveal was Monday 21 May – perfect timing to ensure the wrap appeared in full before Jubilee mania had escalated, with major competition from other companies.

We arranged to film a time-lapse movie of the project and an interview with designer Tom Dixon, who is behind the new Mondrian Hotel and 300,000 square feet of luxury office space opening at Sea Containers next year.

We secured permission from HMS President, a ship anchored in front of Sea Containers, to offer press access for our photocall to reveal the Queen.

We also pitched to programme planners and weather forecasters to offer Sea Containers with its Jubilee wrap as a backdrop.

Through establishing a brilliant relationship with HMS President, a hospitality ship moored opposite Sea Containers, Golden Goose PR was allowed to set up a temporary office on board the boat with a direct view of the wrap as it unfolded. This was the perfect spot to manage filming and launch our social media campaign; feeding updates and teaser twit pix into Sea Containers Twitter and Facebook accounts using #jubileewrap @seacontainers.

Our floating social media division followed every local South Bank business and other major businesses, to tweet them about the wrap with messages about the hotel and offices development.

To ensure property trade editorial, we issued exclusive computer generated images of the Silver Jubilee Wrap on Sea Containers, knowing that these would appear the day after the national photocall (not spoiling broadsheet and London coverage).

Our photocall notice was issued in tandem with the final reveal of the complete wrap, under embargo.

On the day of the final reveal, to add to the drama and show the scale of the 100m wrap, we sent an abseiler down The Queen's face as soon as her panel was dropped which created a dramatic moment that all the picture desks picked up.

As soon as our photocall was over, we issued a national press release with images to the UK media and virally seeded our time lapse video and Tom Dixon movie.

Major challenges

For safety reasons, we could not get the company that was rigging the wrap to commit to a time to reveal the final panel. We didn't know until the last few hours of the wrap installation if we could make our 10am photocall work.

Results

• Sky, NBC and Reuters film crews attended the reveal, with photographers from Associated Press, London Evening Standard, Telegraph, Getty, Rex, Alpha, National News and SE1. The BBC, CNN, *ITN and PA requested pictures and our time lapse video.
• BBC London News and BBC London Weather joined us on board HMS President on the day of the reveal to broadcast live, name checking Sea Containers. They returned the week after to film their Jubilee weekend weather report using Sea Containers as the backdrop.
• Full page in the London Evening Standard, lead news in Estates Gazette, cover of the FT, half/quarter pages in the Telegraph, the Guardian, The Independent, The Sun. Big spreads in SunOnline and MailOnline (11 picture montage & client quote), Metro.co.uk, Huffington Post (Tom Dixon movie), Architects Journal Online (Tom Dixon movie), ITV News Online, International Business Times plus over 300 websites.
• Key online international & business coverage included Wall Street Online, Yahoo, MSN, France 24, The LA Times, ABC News, AOL.
• BBC1, BBC World News, Sky News and CNN all featured and name checked Sea Containers in their live pageant broadcasts (BBC live coverage ran two mentions). BBC.co.uk included Sea Containers in its two minute montage of top River Pageant moments.
• Hello Magazine name checked Sea Containers with double page image, saying the Royal Family were 'tickled by their giant tribute'.
• 46,719 people watched the Sea Containers time lapse video with 1,657 clicking through to the Sea Containers website for more information.
• 74% of those who watched the video watched 100% of the content.
• Social media followers increased by over 100% in less than a week.

Golden Goose PR invested in a post-campaign attitudinal survey by OpinionMatters. Of 1,000 people surveyed across the UK, 36% were made aware of Sea Containers through the wrap. 48% men and women living or working in London said Sea Containers was a cultural icon over the Jubilee period. Over one in 10 (11.5%) learned it is being transformed into a luxury hotel and offices, 22% are interested to know more about Sea Containers. 30% live/work in London and 18% are business decision makers.

With the wrap in place for the indefinite future, ROI continues to grow, with thousands more opportunities to see the image.