Two Lancashire PR agencies who collaborated are celebrating making the finals in two categories at the influential PRmoment Awards 2021 for their shared client, Rivington Terraced Gardens’ Squarea Campaign.
Earning recognition in both the Best Community Engagement Campaign of the Year and Best Low Budget Campaign categories, the ‘double nomination’ praised the PR agencies’ success in helping to raise funds for the Rivington Heritage Trust, onboarding high profile celebrities and gaining impressive print, broadcast and social media exposure.
The agencies came together to share PR tactics, a strategic approach and their bank of both influencer and media contacts to embark on a hard-hitting media liaison and celebrity outreach campaign. Based in Chorley and Ramsbottom respectively, the agencies targeted the regions most invested in the local beauty spot to maximise awareness of the campaign whilst also appealing to those further afield.
Rivington Heritage Trust faced a challenge in lockdown to find the £100k annual maintenance costs for the Terraced Gardens as the events calendar had to be cancelled. The Trust came up with the ‘Squarea’ concept, where members of the public could sponsor a 10m sq virtual patch of the gardens for £20 to help towards the renovation costs for the next five years.
Says Kara Rose, MD of KRPR: “We hit the ground running with the influencer campaign, and the results were immediate, with Mark Radcliffe, Dave Spikey, Sammy Winward and Steve Royle coming on-board within weeks to support the initiative. Tess Daly and Vernon Kay also pledged their support and provided a quote and image to be included in the campaign push which was a huge coup and certainly encouraged people to dig deep and pledge their support.
“In addition, Mark Radcliffe has become a patron of the Gardens as a direct consequence of the outreach campaign – that’s the sort of result money just can’t buy!”
Says Emma Starrs, MD of Ad Hoc-PR: “It’s been brilliant to work with KRPR on this project and achieve fantastic results for the Trust. Rivington is such a beautiful asset to the area and we’re both glad to have been able to help raise awareness of the work of the Trust and the volunteers to keep the gardens maintained for even longer.”
Richard Galloway, a Director of Rivington Heritage Trust said: “The PR management and execution was pivotal to the campaign’s success. The results in just a short space of time and the celebrity involvement secured is nothing short of remarkable and we are very happy with what the team brought to our campaign.”
The winners of the awards for the Manchester & The North region will be announced at a virtual ceremony on June 3rd.
To see the PR Moment Awards shortlist, visit: Manchester & the North shortlist