Royal Ascot is always the favourite for advertising
Another year, another Royal Ascot and most people look to the incredible outfits, slick top and tails and eye-catching hats on show but being the people we are at Blimey, we’re all about the creative marketing.
First, a little history – Ascot Racecourse was founded in 1711 by Queen Anne. The first race, “Her Majesty’s Plate”, with a purse of 100 guineas, was held on 11 August 1711. The very British racecourse is located in Ascot, Berkshire, and is renowned for its thoroughbred horse racing.
As we’re looking at the marketing, it’s important to note the sheer scale of the whole thing, with the event welcoming over 300,000 visitors across the famous five days. And with £5.5 million in the prize money pot, it is, hands down, the most valuable race meeting in Britain. It’s also not unexpected that they caught onto eye-catching campaigns – as well as keeping with their history for drama, it’s a golden opportunity to remarket for next year.
A staggering 25,000 people signed into Ascot’s free Wi-Fi at last year’s Royal Meeting and 100,000 tweets were logged using the #RoyalAscot or Royal Ascot. And it’s no small chance for other brands too – during the five days, it is estimated that racegoers will consume 51,000 bottles of champagne, 160,000 glasses of Pimm’s, 7,000 Cornish and Folkestone crabs, 2,900 lobsters, 1000kg of Cornish clotted cream, 7,000 punnets of berries, 30,000 chocolate choux éclairs and 89,000 bottles of mineral water.
Perhaps that will come as no surprise to past attendees, after all, Ascot Racecourse is visited by just under 600,000 racegoers a year, accounting for an incredible 10% of all UK racegoers. That quite the audience for upsell. So, now you’re fully informed about all things Ascot, let’s look at the amazing lengths the already popular event goes to for maximum impact and sales. It might feel like they don’t have, but that’s never the attitude, so they pull it out of the bag every single year. Here are three of our favourites…
Simon Procter | Vivienne Westwood | 2011
We know we said we didn’t look at the fashion but let’s face it, sometimes it seems as though it’s of equal importance to the race itself. Enter Simon Procter and his decadent campaign from 2011 – featuring Vivienne Westwood couture and the milliner Stephen Jones.
As mainstays of the fashion landscape at Ascot, it was an obvious but inspired choice for this stunningly editorial campaign and they didn’t disappoint, delivering a campaign that took the audience to historical moments in the race’s history while remaining contemporary.
The Colour and the Glory | 2013
Not just a fantastic line of copy, the strength of the visual for the Colour and the Glory makes it one of the stand-out campaigns for Royal Ascot.
To coincide with the wide range of people who attend Ascot, the campaign was delivered through traditional channels such as high-profile posters, press and lifestyle magazines, as well as through digital channels including display advertising, Facebook, and email marketing. Unique and striking, it proved incredibly successful, with a 2% rise in attendance despite a rise in ticket prices.
A World Like Nowhere Else | 2015
The “Like Nowhere Else” campaign set the audience’s focus on four main areas: racing, pageantry, style and fine dining. San Francisco artist Lauren DiCioccio was commissioned to produce a bespoke tapestry that brought these carefully selected elements to life.
With an embroidery that told a story, the final design was able to show off the exciting nature of a day at the event in one key visual. It was supported by a website where people could explore the work in more detail and learn about the stories behind it. It also ran across TV, radio, press, digital and social media, as well as the embroidery itself being shown in full in select locations – a thoroughly modern campaign.
To find out what Blimey Creative can do with your next big campaign, get in touch today on hello@blimeycreative.blimeystage.co.uk or give us a call on 0115 981 6276