Introducing The Chocolate Orange Room at Clementine’s

Clementine’s, is a newly renovated boutique hotel situated in the heart of York. We were tasked with creating a full-scale PR campaign to raise awareness of the hotel, making sure to highlight its quirkiness. 

Blending classic art with modern-day mischief, Clementine’s sees cheeky interior touches, where Parisian chic meets Yorkshire heritage. So, what did we do to stand out in the hotel market?

Looking to highlight a distinct part of York’s history, one particular individual who lived there, a chemist called Joseph Terry invented one of the most famous and beloved confectionery items, Terry’s Chocolate Orange. 

Looking to pay homage to the iconic Chocolate Orange, we worked with Clementine’s to create a dedicated Chocolate Orange hotel suite!

The aptly named Chocolate Orange Room gives chocolate orange lovers the chance to indulge in a chocolate paradise with the room, including chocolate orange-themed gifts upon arrival.

A series of themed chocolate cocktails were also created by Clementine’s in-house mixologist, with Chocolate Orange Daiquiris and After Eight Mojitos available via room service, or to be sipped in the hotel bar, providing guests with the full chocolate experience. 

It all started with a very fun and slightly cheeky photoshoot at Clementine’s. Our wonderful model looked to recreate a scene from the cult-classic American Beauty, covered in orange rose petals. 

The campaign was met with rapturous applause from the press with one journalist describing it as ‘Genius PR’. 

We generated heaps of national and regional coverage for the hotel, driving awareness, SEO and direct bookings. Also ensuring that all coverage had direct links back to Clementine's website, ensuring a steady stream of referral traffic. 

One of our values at Down At The Social is not just doing PR for PR sake. This is very much true with this particular campaign. Whilst we wanted to do something fun, we wanted to do something that would see our client benefit, with direct links back to the Clementine’s website. Some great exposure and a flurry of bookings! So thanks Terry, we owe you! 

Diablesse Celebrates International Women's Day

Creative PR Campaigns

Led by a team of women, Diablesse Rum, is an independent female-owned rum brand based in Manchester, disrupting the landscape of a predominantly male rum industry.

Owner & Managing Director, Cleo Farman, has an ethos to champion a more female-inclusive approach to rum, with Diablesse Rum the result of Farman’s year-long exploration of rums, personally creating and testing different blends and flavours.

For International Women's Day 2021, with the country in lockdown and IWD events forced online, we worked with Diablesse Rum and Manchester-based illustrator and graphic designer, Alexandra Francis, to create two limited edition prints of two inspirational women, past and present.

Featuring Kamala Harris and Emmeline Pankhurst, the prints were designed in the IWD colours of purple, green and white, seeing all proceeds going to The Pankhurst Trust.

Alongside the prints, female mixologist Sammie Cox has designed three International Women’s Day Diablesse cocktails, with each one representing the IWD colours and meanings. Plus, in collaboration with Femme Forward, male & female bartenders from around the UK were invited to post their own Diablesse white, purple and green cocktails on social on the day to honour the occasion. The perfect tipples to toast International Women’s Day and powerful females doing great things.

The campaign resulted in blanket regional coverage for Manchester, alongside key product placement coverage in nationals.

The Diva Of Gin Liqueurs...

Gin Social Media Launch.

When it comes to divas, nobody does it better than the GC!

When reality TV star extraordinaire Gemma Collins puts her name to a product the world goes wild.

At Zymurgorium there is a team of wizards that create never-seen before gins and liqueurs in their sleep and they had a brilliant time creating Gemma’s first ever gin liqueur, the FlaGINgo Gemma Collins.

With a fabulous product to play with, how did we maximise this on social and get the whole world wanting to get their hands on it? We needed to drive a social media campaign that packed a punch and commanded the attention of anyone who saw it.

Launched officially onto shelves on Monday 23rd November, we looked to start a teaser campaign of social, working in flamingo feathers and glitter to captivate our audiences attention. The teaser campaign asked followers to guess who was behind the campaign and led them into a 7 day countdown to launch day.

As the product went live on the website at 9am, we coincided our announcement with Gemma Collins also putting the announcement live on her channels, creating maximum traffic.

The social campaign created a staggering 64.000 social engagements from the Zymurgorium social channels and propelled the product to new heights.

Launching Manchester Pride Festival 2021

Event / Festival Promotion

Last week we were so happy to announce the plans we have been working hard on behind the scenes to delivery an in person Manchester Pride Festival in 2021.

Taking this event online in 2020 was hugely rewarding and enabled the Manchester Pride team to build new and extremely effective ways to engage with LGBTQ+ people.

This meant that we were able to continue the vital work we do in raising the profile of the charity and working with media and influencers to keep the conversation about equality and inclusion moving forwards.

We announced that the festival was happening in February to give everyone time to digest the plan and then last Thursday at 9am tickets went on sale.

The weekend rainbow passes to Manchester Pride Live sold out in less than an hour and day tickets and Gay Village Party tickets are still selling fast.

We generated 17 national and 14 regional pieces reaching 146,499,401 people in just 10 days.

National Apprenticeship Week with Seetec Outsource

Thought Leadership & Media Relations

National Apprenticeship Week 2021 took place 8th - 14th February 2021. This annual week-long celebration of apprenticeships aims to bring the whole apprenticeship community together to celebrate the impact of apprenticeships on individuals, employers and the economy.

To increase awareness of Seetec Outsource as a leading apprenticeship provider, we worked alongside Breedon, a construction materials group which employs 40 apprentices currently with Seetec, to tap into the massive noise of NAW with an engaging media relations campaign. 

The campaign focussed on Breedon’s apprentices being important during the pandemic to keep the country moving and how Seetec managed to adapt quickly to online learning, with 87% of those surveyed by Seetec being able to carry on learning during lockdown. 

By doing this, we highlighted opportunities available to apprentices in the logistics and freight industry, why people should consider the industry as a career path and looked at why apprentices are available to those of all ages. 

The campaign included three Breedon apprentices along with key spokespeople at Seetec, this provided perspective on the process of starting an apprenticeship and what an apprenticeship entails. 

With apprenticeship starts in England being 46% lower between March 23 and 31 July than the same period a year earlier, according to figures published by the Department for Education, the campaign also encouraged other businesses like Breedon, to consider taking on apprentices. 

The range of stories, case studies and stats allowed us to start multiple conversations with journalists, engaging with a wide range of media and publications. 

This resulted in the campaign reaching 2,300,949 eyeballs and 16 pieces of coverage.

Kays Traffic Management

Social Media & Community Engagement.

KAYS is a leading service provider in road management, based in Blackburn, Lancashire.

We were tasked with delivering both PR and social media, to elevate their profile.

The KAYS Facebook page has since received a total page reach of 94,701 - an increase year on year of 56,000%.

Content strategy has included a mix of brand creative, key date messages and PR stories, such as the Poppy Appeal.

The Poppy Appeal saw KAYS paint giant poppies on roads around the North West to commemorate Remembrance Day 2020, resulting in highly engaged social content with a reach of over 91k.

The Jordan Hotel

News-jacking I’m A Celebrity.

Did you watch Jordan on I'm A Celeb?

We loved him, and so did Michael and the team at The Lawrence Hotel, so we renamed the hotel to support Jordan on the show.

With a logo redesign, a press release and a new URL, we turned this idea around in 48 hours and got it out to press, generating coverage with The Metro, The Mirror, Pendle Today, Lancs Live, Lancashire Telegraph and the Burnley Express.

News jacking is a brilliant and often quite low budget tactic to generate mass headlines and awareness for a brand.

Cocktail Masterclass From A Flamingo Farm

Virtual Consumer Engagement.

Making cocktails with real life flamingos might not seem like the dream combination but it is when you are Zymurgorium - the makers of FlaGINgo!

The brand has seen online sales of its FlaGINgo pink gin sky rocket in lockdown so they tasked us with engaging with these new consumers to drive further sales.

We knew that consumers we desperate for new and engaging things things to do and that booze was factoring highly in lockdown life. So the only natural thing to do was host a cocktail masterclass from a flamingo farm…

To promote the masterclass we first help a ‘test’ event with a collection of influencers that we knew were fans of the brand. The content they created was brilliant for reaching existing and potential Zym customers.

We engaged with xxx influencers with content that reached xx eyeballs.

Next up came the consumer event which saw 50 gin fans making cocktails with our in-house bartender and Manchester tv, radio and zoom royalty Hattie Pearson.

Zym fans loved it and we saw a further uplift in sales as a result.

Coverage generated for the event included xxx, reaching another xxx eyeballs.

At Home - Product Placement

At Home Is The New Eating Out

At Home boxes are everywhere right now - people miss restaurants and this is the next best thing.

So much so that a whole new category has been spawned!

In the last 8 months we have successfully handled launches for MasterChef champion Simon Wood and Wood At Home, Shoryu Ramen, KBK, Rudy’s At Home, Six By Nico and the recently launched Home X platform from the same team.

We have generated coverage in titles from the Mail Online and Hello to Style, GQ and Esquire.

Clients have reported sales of at least £1k from each piece of coverage generated and even Jay Rayner has written about some of them!

Spearheading Feeding Families With Simon Wood

Campaigning, media relations and digital.

We are working with MasterChef champion Simon Wood to help families in need with the launch of a brand new website to house his easy and nutritious recipes.

Having recognised the need for a campaign to raise awareness of the many issues surrounding free school lunches we are leading the communications and digital activity for the #FeedingFamiliesFor30 initiative. 

We started with the purpose of showcasing what £30 worth of food from a supermarket should look like, compared to the free school meal parcels provided by the government. Complimented by Simon Wood creating a series of quick and tasty recipes using dried goods and tinned produce which he would syndicate on his social channels, to offer inspiration to families when cooking at home. 

The recipes were so well received, especially for those who have seen their income cut due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, that we shifted our focus here entirely and created a website to house them. 

The Feeding Families With Simon Wood website was created, offering a space where individuals and families can seek inspiration and resources to create quick and easy meals using cupboard essentials. 

Alongside the website, we have been running a busy press office, and also partnered with experienced media specialists, Monster Outdoor, to take the recipes to the streets with a special branded Simon Wood ad van.  The website stats have been amazing - especially with the kind support of some of Simon’s TV friends…

Coverage so far has included

We are continuing to grow the initiative further, working directly with food banks to create bespoke recipes on whatever stock they have surplus of - one told us they had 21k celeriac this week!

Inspired by the incredible work of footballer, Marcus Rashford, we really want to provide real solutions for real people who want to eat well but on a strict budget. 

For more information and to access Simon Wood’s recipes, please visit: https://www.feedingfamilieswithsimonwood.co.uk/ 

The Diva Of Gins!

Product Launch

Celebrity endorsements and collaborations have been PR gold since the beginning of time and nobody does it better than the GC.

When reality TV star extraordinaire Gemma Collins puts her name to a product the world goes wild. As a team we have been keen to pair the Diva (with a capital D) with Zymurgorium for some time.

At Zymurgorium there is a team of wizards that create never-seen before gins and liqueurs in their sleep and they had a brilliant time creating Gemma’s first ever gin liqueur, the FlaGINgo Gemma Collins.

We were responsible for the campaign from conception, to doing a deal with Gemma’s team to delivering the content and PR and social campaigns. We even managed to hold a socially distanced, safe shoot in London - thanks Blame Gloria. You should check the venue out when hospitality reopens, it’s fab.

Launched officially onto shelves on Monday 23rd November, FlaGINgo Gemma Collins is a kiwi and lime premium gin liqueur, an exotic blend of juniper, refreshing kiwi and feisty lime zest, all with a touching hint of forest fruits. It’s got a striking bottle design, complete with Essex inspired flamingos on a red carpet, and sparkles to create a show-stopping glittering gin liqueur.

The product was stocked in B&M (retail exclusive), Studio, Prezzybox, Masters of Malt and Amber Taverns, as well as being available on the Zymurgorium website. We worked closely with the retailers to integrate the launch across as many channels as possible and announce the product with a bang.

The campaign reached xxx eyeballs with coverage in xxx national titles including…

On social it reached xxxx users who all loved it!

And more importantly the products have been racing off shelves everywhere.

Domestic Abuse At Christmas

Raising Awareness With Media Relations.

According to UK government figures from 2012, assault and domestic murders increase 25 per cent during the festive period and incidents go up by a third on Christmas Day itself, with the current restrictions in place, this is expected to raise this year. 

Safer Wednesday’s is just one of the many programmes which is facilitated by Seetec Justice and provides sessions every Wednesday for victims of domestic abuse who need support.

We worked with Seetec to raise awareness of the fantastic work that Seetec Justice does to help victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse with a targeted and informed media relations campaign.

A subject like this doesn’t warrant a glitzy stunt or create campaign, our job was just to pull together a compelling story with statistics, information about the relevant services and case studies who could speak openly and honestly.

The campaign reached 20,400,000 eyeballs with coverage highlights including I News.

Tanks A Lot!

Creative customer engagement.

Our client, the national pan-Asian group behind Chopstix Noodle Bars, wanted to reach students across the UK by feeding them and putting a smile on their faces so we looked to the students of Manchester who were all isolating in their halls.

We thought what better way to deliver hot steaming noodles to starving (slight exaggeration) than in a vintage WW2 tank - and Noodle Aid was born. Well it was after we had sourced said tank, which obviously is much easier said than done. It would pay for PR agencies to have someone in all brainstorms to remind you of this!

So Chopstix donated 400 meals to students under self-isolation, looking to spread cheer and goodwill during testing times.

How did we do? The brief was - national coverage, consumer engagement with students, drive trial and create some really great content. Mission accomplished. The tank was on Metro first thing the next day with other coverage on Yahoo News, Manchester Evening News and Capital, alongside international coverage on The West (Aus) and Play Stuff (NZ). We made 400 students smile as they tucked into their free noodles and the content reached 93,301,424 people across media and social channels.

Want to know more about Chopstix? Chopstix is focused on delivering a faster, fresher, tastier alternative to the high street. Wok master chefs deliver nourishing noodles, wholesome chicken, beautiful beef and perfect prawns with fresh vegetables and superb sauces to make Chopstix the ‘go to guys’ for boxed fresh flavour. You can find Chopstix in over 60 locations throughout the UK.

MMU Student Life Welcome Event

Virtual Events.

We were really honoured to be able to work with the team at MMU to create an event to welcome the 2020/21 students to our amazing city.

As the students were to be robbed of real life freshers events and all the other great stuff that comes with the first few weeks of uni, the university wanted to create an experience that engaged and informed the students about the different services available across the school for them.

They tasked us with creating a series of webinars that would bring together the vast array of content that they had created in an engaging format.

We produced the event using Webinar Jam and recruited Manchester babe and TV and radio presenter, Hattie Pearson, to host and bring together the content together in true Mancunian style.

The 90 minute shows combined live content, quizzes and pre-recorded video content to educate students about Manchester, the university's student services and more. This was a fantastic way for the uni to deliver a lot of information in an engaging format and it proved popular with students and staff alike.

Thousands of students attended the six webinars where they were introduced to departments, services and support staff. Vital conversations around living in the city, getting a job and finding support with any issues began at these events helping the new freshers to settle in in unsettling times.

Alternative Manchester Pride Festival

Event and Charity PR

We have worked with LGBTQ+ charity Manchester Pride since 2014.

Our role is to both promote and sell tickets to events and work with the team behind the charity to achieve its vision of a world where LGBTQ+ people are free to live and love without prejudice and improving the lives of LGBTQ+ people in Greater Manchester and beyond.

Every year we handle a content office promoting the world class Manchester Pride Festival in August. We host over 300 national journalists, work with bodies like Marketing Manchester to bring influencers from across the world, organise interviews and photography with artists and work with a whole host of journalists and photographers to generate regional, national and international coverage to raise awareness of the amazing work the organisation does.

In 2020 we worked closely with the Manchester Pride team to take its flagship event online.

We generated an ROI of £1: 1,115,333, meaning that for every £1 spent we reached 1,115,333 people.

In August alone we generated 112 pieces of coverage with a reach of 123 million and an estimated 3m online views.

This included blanket regional BBC and commercial radio coverage, print and online regionally and nationally.

We don’t just promote the event, we promote the city, the charity and the people involved. This helps us tell the story of this vital work completely.

Manchester School Of Art, Class of 2020

Virtual Event Management.

Students at Manchester's School Of Art may have missed out on their end of year show in real life but they were treated to an amazing series of events by the school to give them a glimpse of what they might experience next.

We were thrilled to be able to get involved to help deliver a five of these events.

First was an 'in conversation' between Manchester arts and culture consultant Katie Popperwell and School of Art alumni and artist Ryan Gander.

Using a series of live and filmed content, we created a series of events which were held on Zoom for students and streamed on YouTube for a wider audience to learn more about the brilliant work carried out at the world-leading school.

Launching Six By Nico Manchester & Liverpool

Restaurant Launch.

The brief was to launch the first Six by Nico restaurant in England, to get the people of Manchester excited about the new offering and to drive loyalty to the brand.

Then in quick succession, launch Liverpool!

We delivered a campaign using a combination of media relations and influencer engagement to build maximum excitement for this exciting new concept.

As the restaurant only has one menu at a time it posed both a challenge and an opportunity as we had a steady stream of stories but we needed to ensure that customers new exactly what they were getting. This is where media and influencer content were crucial.

We engaged all of the key media titles for each city, resulting in a total of 118 pieces of coverage about the launch of the new restaurants.

Liverpool reach: 29,414,253

Manchester reach: 55,077,907

Six by Nico Manchester had 3,000 reservations before the restaurant opened, and in Liverpool almost 5,000.

During launch weekend we filled every seat with press, influencers and VIPS!

The Caterer and Restaurant Magazine both came from London to meet Nico and try the food.

Six By Nico is one of the most popular restaurants in both cities. Often booked up for months - no we can’t squeeze you in sorry! We did squeeze Graham Norton in once though… we had to really!

Simon Wood Saves Lockdown

Driving Content With Media Relations

As we entered Lockdown 1:0 in March we had no idea what was to come. Many of our travel, hospitality and retail clients were making arrangements to close their doors and we got to thinking about what we could do to support them.

Simon Wood, who never seems to sit still, had a lot of time on his hands as the announcement was made that even KFC and McDonald’s would shut…. so we thought, Simon could keep himself and his restaurant front of mind and fill the gaping hole that this would leave.

Simon created a Big Mac sauce recipe which he put out across social at 7pm as the nation’s fast food restaurants all closed. At the same time our team sent it out to media to drive the content further.

The Big Mac sauce has been in the Daily Mail, Daily Star and Daily Express plus OK mag and more.

This lead to a whole series of recipes from salt and pepper chips to KFC style gravy and hot wings.

Overall the campaign reached xxx eyeballs with over xxx pieces of coverage.