Soul Captures the Spirit of Yorkshire for Tour de France

Creative direct marketing agency Soul has crafted a new campaign for Yorkshire Building Society (YBS), announcing the Society’s sponsorship of the Tour de France Grand Départ, as part of YBS’s 150th year anniversary. The iconic sporting event will begin in Yorkshire on July 5th and 6th, 2014, before heading to Cambridge and London on July 7th and then into mainland Europe.

The campaign for the UK’s second largest building society includes TV idents, press ads, branch collateral, 48 and six sheet posters as well as in-branch posters. The creative focuses on the glories of Yorkshire and how the region provides a stunning backdrop to the world’s most famous bicycle road race. Super-size posters communicating Yorkshire as the ‘most beautiful race track in the world’ target cyclists heading out of Leeds into the countryside.

Yorkshire Building Society is the only UK-based financial services provider to support the first three stages of the race. Anna Higgins, customer marketing manager, said about its involvement: “This is a special year for us as we celebrate our 150th anniversary; the pride we feel to be supporting this iconic sporting event in what is a landmark year for us is second to none.”

“Soul has become our go-to agency for creative initiatives. It has developed a campaign concept that encapsulates both our immense pride and the entire county’s excitement about the race. We’re supporting a global event that will bring the eyes of the world to the UK and to Yorkshire in particular.”

Shaun Moran, Soul’s creative director, said: “Our brief was to communicate not only how proud YBS is to sponsor the Tour de France Grand Départ, but how proud it is of Yorkshire, it’s our home. We’ve used stunning images of the Yorkshire Dales and other parts of the county to show both cyclists and observers what’s waiting for them.”

Credits

Account director: Sam Whiston

Creative director: Shaun Moran

Head of art: Paul Walton

Senior copywriter: Linda Cash

Senior art director: James Ellis