Introduction

Ashford Borough Council in Kent, in conjunction with Wild in Art, launched a creative, large-scale public art trail ‘Snowdogs Discover Ashford’. The trail consisted of over 30 large Snowdog sculptures placed around the town for 10 weeks. The sculptures were themed on the Raymond Briggs classic characters, The Snowman and The Snowdog, and were decorated by local and regional artists. Each sculpture was sponsored by a local business and then auctioned off to raise vital funds for the well-regarded local charity, Pilgrims Hospices.

The brief

As a completely new scheme, there was no brand awareness of ‘Snowdogs Discover Ashford’ and it had no social media presence. This was a completely new initiative to Ashford, and Realia was tasked with developing an engaging campaign to attract the multiple stakeholders to Ashford Snowdogs’ social media platforms, and effectively promote the sculpture trail on a paid and pro-bono basis.

We needed to create something that would appeal to a diverse group of stakeholders including the local community, artists, local businesses and the wider Kent community. Meanwhile, we also had to engage with 30+ sponsors (and their agencies) to ensure we all delivered a consistent and coherent approach, maximising, rather than diluting, the core proposition.

The overall objective set by the client was to raise awareness of the scheme and tell the story behind the ‘Snowdogs Discover Ashford’. This included recruiting artists to design the Snowdogs, and businesses to sponsor them, as well as engaging the local Ashford community - and beyond.

Strategy

Setting the scene

In order for the campaign to be successful, we decided it was fundamental to create a compelling link between the location (Ashford), the story and the charity. The story of the Snowman and the Snowdog is one that touches so many, exploring important themes of love, life, loss and hope. This is a story that is relived every day at Pilgrims Hospices and one we wanted everyone to understand.

The proposition was: ‘Find your Snowdog’. We all have a story to tell about our experiences of life’s adventures, including love, loss, life and death and it is those experiences that bind us to others, creating relationships and communities along the way.

Bringing the Snowdogs to life

Under this umbrella proposition, we devised weekly themes that related to Ashford, the story and the charity and had direct relevance to each of the stakeholders. Each weekly theme had a hashtag that was shared online by all stakeholders e.g. #LoveWeek and #ReflectionWeek, and a branded infographic to go alongside it. The social media campaign plan was shared in a stakeholder meeting with partners prior to the launch date, and the message gained consensus on a consolidated and coherent level from all partners.

We utilised our OTE model as part of our wider social strategy. OTE is ‘Opportunities to Engage’ - an integrated approach to deliver consistent, engaging content via social outreach, PR and search engine optimisation. Each piece of content is re-engineered for these platforms; maximising economies of scale, delivering increased reach and definitive metrics in terms of engagement and ROI. This provides audiences with multiple touchpoints to engage. We utilised this approach alongside the Ashford Borough Council Communications team, to ensure complete consistency across all platforms.

Engaging stakeholders

We began the social campaign sharing the successes of past Wild in Art trails across the country and drumming up awareness. We then put our focus on recruiting business sponsors and artists to design the Snowdogs. We connected with both of these audiences through social media engagement from the Snowdogs platforms; following, liking, retweeting and sharing their content. This engagement alongside our scheduled social content and utilising hashtags such as #KentBusiness and #ArtistInKent, resulted in the recruitment of artists and sponsors for the project.

As business sponsors started to join the scheme, we started profiling them on our social media platforms with a weekly #SponsorSpotlight. We continued to encourage other local businesses to join the project by sharing testimonials from existing sponsors, which eventually resulted in over 30 businesses sponsoring the trail.

Due to the success of the #SponsorSpotlight, we decided to implement a weekly #SnowdogArtist profile to announce the artists. This showcased the artist and their reason for joining the project. This helped boost awareness as we were tapping into over 30 artists’ social media following too.

When all stakeholders were secured, we began to deliver the overarching social media-led marketing campaign. During this, our priority was to connect the charity, the story and the local community.

Results

In the 10-month period between February 2018 to November 2018, we saw the following social statistics:

• Facebook impressions = 791,753

• Facebook engaged users = 33,863

• Tweet impressions = 197,100

• Twitter profile visits = 11,416

• Instagram post likes = 9,691

Following the 10-week sculpture trail, we saw the following statistics:

• The Ashford shopping centre, County Square, reported an 11% increase in footfall during the first week of the Snowdogs campaign

• Ashford town centre statistics showed footfall increased by 122,000 people in the first month of the Snowdogs campaign

• 4,000 Snowdog app downloads

• 44,000 Snowdog app redemptions.

In December 2018, the Snowdogs were auctioned off at a charity gala auction where sponsors, partners, members of the community and further afield, bid to purchase the Snowdog sculptures. A massive £142,000 was raised on the evening, all in aid of the charity Pilgrims Hospices. Realia streamed the auction live on Facebook, where 23,358 watched on and 4,886 engaged by liking and commenting. Many of the bidders donated the Snowdog sculptures to local schools and public places, so that the Ashford community could continue to enjoy the Snowdogs.

Critically, we created a single-minded approach to the campaign and won the support of all stakeholders including a multitude of marketing agencies. Our ability to develop messaging that reflected the propositions of the key, yet diverse parties, was critical to the success of the campaign. We had all sponsors, artists and other stakeholders aligned which means that we had the best possible opportunity to amplify the campaign, whilst still fulfilling the individual objectives of those involved.

We were fully and emotionally invested in this project from the offset, and this was portrayed not only in our social media strategy, but in our voluntary support. Alongside our paid work, we helped with many events throughout the project, created and distributed press releases and supported the communications team fully. Our support extended to the sponsors and artists too, who came to Realia throughout the project and received full social media support.

Supporting testimonial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJnhPTJIJx8