The 2011 Winter Festival has been deemed a success, having attracted tens of thousands of Christmas shoppers to the City Centre, providing a real boost for Plymouth traders.
The marketing and PR campaign for the Winter Festival reached millions of people across the South West through television, newspaper, magazine and radio advertising, print and broadcast editorial coverage and distribution of a Winter Festival special edition of Explore Magazine.
In the lead up to Christmas, a 6-week advertising campaign on Heart FM (Devon) reached 341,000 listeners and combined newspaper and magazine advertising created more than 750,000 opportunities to view.
The Winter Festival television advert, created by local companies N9 Design and Mutant Labs is estimated to have been seen more than 6 million times by 75 per cent of the target audience, and with a distribution of 40,000 copies, Explore was seen by an estimated 120,000 people, resulting in a 200 per cent increase on competition entries through the magazine, compared to previous campaigns.
The effect of the marketing and PR campaign was seen at the Christmas lights switch-on, the first major event of the Winter Festival on Thursday 10 November, which brought 13,000 visitors to the City Centre and kick-started the festive retail period.
Val Cass, from independent gift shop Beaux Cadeaux said: “We definitely saw a big improvement in trading over Christmas this year compared to 2010, it was much more positive and we actually exceeded all our targets for the festive period. I think the Winter Festival activity played a part in that, and is a boost for Plymouth in general, attracting more shoppers to the city. It was great to have the ice rink back again, and the Christmas lights looked particularly good this year, so all in all we had a very good Christmas.”
The Plymouth Winter Festival was developed in 2010 by Plymouth City Centre Company, to promote Plymouth’s retail and leisure offer to a regional audience and drive footfall to the City Centre.
The Winter Festival focuses around four key events – the Christmas lights switch on, Christmas market, Christmas ice rink and Christmas carnival – which add to the festive feeling and give shoppers more reason to visit the city.
Plymouth City Centre Company is planning to continue the Winter Festival for Christmas 2012. For the latest information and updates, become a fan of the Winter Festival on Facebook or follow @PlymWinterFest on Twitter.
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