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Premier town, Premier Club... Premier
Campaign
A PR campaign designed to make sure Wigan benefited from the phenomenal
success of its football club’s first ever season in the Premiership is
in line for a top national award.
The ‘Wigan Premier Town’ campaign was launched last year by Wigan
Leisure and Culture Trust, Wigan Council and Wigan Athletic.
Organisers aimed to prove to new visitors and the media that Wigan was a
progressive town geared up to match the club’s new found Premiership
status. Now the campaign has been shortlisted for the Chartered
Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Local Government Group’s
prestigious Campaign of the Year award.
As well as working on the logistics of improving transport links for
supporters, the council put up two 'Welcome to Wigan - Home of the
Premiership and Super League' signs on the main routes into Wigan.
Ten thousand ‘Wigan - Premier Town’ guides were distributed to national
tourist information centres, football clubs and supporter associations
in other Premiership towns. The group also went out of their way to
welcome the media to the borough and to showcase Wigan’s rich array of
attractions at every opportunity.
The astonishing effect of the campaign and the club's success included:
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200,000 additional number of visitors to Wigan over 19 league home games
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£11 million of additional spending in the Wigan economy
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Hotel occupancy up by at least 4%
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The town hosted nearly 500 extra journalists over the season.
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At least £700,000 worth of media coverage generated for the town, with
highlights including special features on Al-Jazeera, Transworld Sport
and Dutch ‘RTV’.
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Over a dozen national and international press features including the New
York Times and a Swiss Sunday newspaper.
The Wigan team will learn in a couple of weeks if they have beaten off
competition from Hackney, Westminster, Stockport and Kirklees when the
results are announced at the CIPR’s annual Excellence in Communications
awards in Belfast. The borough’s tourism boss Keith Bergman will give
delegates a short presentation about the campaign.
Rodney Hill, chief executive of Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust, said:
“Wigan Athletic’s new found status was a tremendous boost to the town’s
profile - we estimate that over five hundred minutes of positive
national and international TV and radio coverage were recorded over the
season.
“We also gave guided tours to the national media and to journalists from
as far afield as Switzerland and the Middle East. A town’s reputation
has a massive influence on everything from tourism to inward investment,
so regardless of whether we win on the night, we hope to continue this
invaluable work long through the coming season and beyond.”
Latics media spokesman Matt McCann said he was delighted to learn that
the campaign had impressed the country’s leading PR practitioners.
He said: “As a club we have an excellent relationship with the Council
and the Leisure and Culture Trust and we were pleased to play a part in
the campaign to boost Wigan’s image in the wider world.”
The winners will be announced on Friday 22nd September.
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Note to editors
Further information from:
Keith Bergman, Wigan Tourism Development Manager 01942 486951.
Chris Dunbar, PR Officer, Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust, 01942 486937.
David Mather, Head of PR, Wigan Council 01942 827164.
Matt McCann, Wigan Athletic, 01942 770445.
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