I’ve been fortunate to work for some of the most beloved brands in the leisure, hospitality and tourism sectors during my career and here is where I get to showcase some of my favourite campaigns and share their impact.

The JORVIK Group of Attractions – 5 great attractions & 1 heck of an adventure

Ragnarok - The End of the World
Copyright York Archaeological Trust

I was fortunate to spend 5 brilliant years delivering some of the most exciting and far-reaching campaigns in the heritage and attractions space.

The end is just a new beginning…

Starting, naturally, with the end of the Viking world with ‘Ragnarok 2014’ – a campaign for the 30th JORVIK Viking Festival, this was a story-driven campaign centred on the events leading to the apocalypse, according to the Vikings.

A tongue-in-cheek approach which translated across a variety of media outlets, both domestic and international and a huge social media interest of at least 1 million accounts reached during the campaign. The reach was so extensive that there was even a special ‘Ragnarok’ themed music event in New York City the weekend of the festival!

More Results

  • Ticket sales increased with all large ‘big ticket’ events selling out well-ahead of the festival
  • Over 40,000 visitors attended the 2014 festival, and by 2018 this had increased to over 60,000
  • PR reach of 20 million AVE for the 2014 campaign

Return of the Vikings: The Re-Imagining of JORVIK

Return of the Vikings
Copyright York Archaeological Trust

Following the devastating flooding of JORVIK Viking Centre in December 2015 I led on a 16 month-long campaign to keep this much-loved brand visible whilst developing promotion for 4 special exhibitions, 2 JORVIK Viking Festivals as well as ensuring marketing support for the other 4 attractions within the group.

I led on creating a wide-reaching, multi-channel marketing campaign to raise interest and showcase the re-imagined JORVIK Viking Centre from mid-2016 ready for the launch in April 2017.

Key Successes

  • Developing the new, updated JORVIK brand
  • Developing the strategy for the Return of the Vikings campaign
  • Development and implementation of a new, mobile-first website – jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk
  • PR reach of ‘Re-imagining’ campaign – 18 million AVE
  • Pre-booking to JORVIK increased significantly
  • Over 30% increase vs the projected visitor numbers for the first 12 months of reopening (420,000 visitors)

The success of this campaign generated two awards for Campaign of the Year and In-House Team of the Year at the 2017 Northern Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Awards, as well as nominations for the same categories at the national CIM Marketing Excellence Awards, of which we won In-House Team of the Year (SME) and a Highly Commended for Campaign of the Year (SME).

Developing Destination Marketing 

It was my privilege to promote York as a leisure and business tourism destination.

I developed a new approach to marketing through the use of holistic and targeted annual, seasonal and event-specific campaigns, all focused on driving traffic to the website and driving conversion. You can see highlights of the work done in 2019 in the video below, which was first shown at the Visit York Tourism Conference 2020.

Copyright Make It York/Visit York

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