Visit Belfast - Visit Belfast
THE CLIENT
Ardmore is proud to have acted as the strategic and creative partner for Visit Belfast for over 15 years, helping the organisation to promote Belfast as a visitor destination to generate economic benefit for the city region. During the lifespan of our partnership, annual visitor numbers to Belfast have grown from 5.3m to 9.5m.
CHALLENGE
In August 2018, the Bank Building fire in the centre of the city had an unmitigated impact on Belfast access and retail. Footfall immediately decreased by 30% as consumers opted to shop, eat and relax outside of the city centre. 14 additional businesses had to close. And bus, taxis, trade deliveries and parking were all disrupted. An urgent response was required to reinvigorate and inspire consumers and reverse the immediate footfall crisis in the run up to Christmas.
SOLUTION
Leveraging the public’s deep–rooted civic pride, #YourBelfast focused on what the city had to offer the Domestic audience, Traders and Tourists. We united the city behind the truth that Belfast would bounce back from hardships, was open for business and was looking forwards to building a stronger Belfast.
RESULTS
40% increase in shoppers during the campaign.
37% YoY growth in shoppers during w/c 24 December
As shareholders in one of the largest networks of independent agencies in the world, we have full access to the skills and resources of a global community of 70 agency partners in 40 countries. We are able to draw on this expertise across borders and continents.
As a result, Ardmore Worldwide Partners today is an Agency with truly global capabilities. We are able to advise our Clients in relation to local cultural knowledge and specific market sensitivities, as well as local media channels, sales channels and suppliers. We further have direct access to behavioural research conducted by our network partners across a range of sectors including tourism, transport, pharma, agri-food and finance.
As a consequence of this, in the past 24 months Ardmore Worldwide Partners has delivered high-impact marketing campaigns and solutions in 14 countries, including the staging of experiential campaigns in cities from Prague to Singapore, Geneva to London, achieving spectacular results.
Over 50% of the work we do today is conducted outside of the UK and Ireland, and we are proud to deliver on our promise of spectacular results on a global scale. For those few territories not serviced by Worldwide Partners, we have developed the Ardmore Global Hub which offers an expanding range of world-class, globally-experienced freelance talent, from Strategic Planning to Creative and Web Development.
Our Hub model means that we can offer a tailored mix of people, skills and services required to solve Clients’ challenges and needs in specific international markets. Centrally managed from our UK and Ireland base, the Ardmore Global Hub is continually developing, with our Clients enjoying the benefits of our expanding capabilities in the delivery of national and international integrated marketing communications.