Twinned Town
brief:
- create UK-wide interest, buzz and excitement around Walt Disney World Resort, Florida
- generate coverage in news, online and broadcast media outside traditional travel pages
- initiate dialogue with social communities, driving online discussion and coverage
- position Walt Disney World as a fun and magical holiday destination
challenges:
- 'travel company' stories naturally sit on travel pages, not news pages
- without anything radically new to say, there's no natural 'news hook' for UK journalists about an American based company
- any messaging must communicate the park itself, not just 'Disney' as a wider brand
strategy:
- Launch Group's strategic approach centred around the conceptualisation of an intrinsic cultural and lifestyle link between the UK and Walt Disney World Resort, Florida, that would have huge appeal to the UK media and public at large, and in the process, get Walt Disney World as the holiday destination on everyone's lips
- so, Launch Group created a world-first, UK-based search to find the very first town to be 'twinned' with Walt Disney World
- entrants were encouraged to submit their home towns for possible twinning, using the same criteria that Walt Disney set out when first building the Walt Disney World Resort. This allowed Launch Group to communicate the main attributes (of fun, magic, celebration of traditions, appeal to all ages, family friendly and inspiration) as an intrinsic part of the story
results:
- the campaign achieved over 650 pieces of coverage including 22 national newspapers, 43 TV broadcast items (32 of which were national), 97 radio interviews, 130 regional newspapers and over 360 online sites
- TV highlights included being opening story on 'Friday Night with Jonathan Ross', where the show's celebrity guests campaigned for their home towns to be twinned, the coveted 'And Finally' on 'ITV News at Ten' and sparking debate on 'BBC Breakfast', who reported live for the Magic Roundabout
- on the day of the winner announcement, the news was covered by every national newspaper including half pages in the The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, The Telegraph and The Guardian
- over 100 blogs covered the campaign and the story was discussed in over 140 Facebook and MySpace groups and pages, as well as generating over 700 Tweets with a combined following of 481,240
measurement
- 99% of the 660 pieces of branded editorial coverage generated were outside the traditional travel pages and on the news pages
- the campaign's coverage led to over 14,500 people visiting the microsite and over 500 'town' entries
Head of Publicity, UK, Disney Destinations International, said, "This campaign completely captured the essence of what we were looking for - to drive the buzz factor around our brand amongst the media and consumers. By capturing their imagination and intrinsically linking it to a British tradition, we were able to deliver outstanding results."
CIPR Award Winner, PRWeek Award Winner, Drum Marketing Award Winner and PRCA Campaign of the Year
