Shopping, lifestyle and culture are the focus of a £50,000 spring national marketing campaign to promote Liverpool.
The campaign has been co-ordinated by Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LCR LEP), which encompasses the City’s Region’s Tourist Board, VisitLiverpool, with support from National Tourist Board, VisitEngland.
The striking campaign has been developed in conjunction with the city’s key private sector retail and transport Partners – Liverpool ONE; Metquarter; City Central BID; Merseyrail.
Marketing activity includes print and online advertising, plus social media activity. Women’s national glossy lifestyle publications – Stylist, Grazia, More!, and Look – are just some of the publications to carry the latest advert, as well as online on The Telegraph Fashion website.
The creative features key lifestyle scenes, including Tate Liverpool; the UK’s first Beauty Bazaar, Harvey Nichols; a hero image of the city’s iconic UNESCO waterfront; Hotel Indigo Liverpool.
A dedicated microsite – www.VisitLiverpool.com/springfashion – gives potential visitors to the destination a comprehensive guide to the city and includes a shopping map; hotel offers; shopping hotspots; attractions and nightlife.
Visitors to the microsite also have the opportunity to win a shopping break in the city for four people, which includes two nights’ accommodation at Bridgestreet Apartments; £100 gift card for Liverpool ONE; £100 gift voucher for Metquarter; tickets for leading attractions including The Beatles Story and Mersey Ferries.*
The campaign is part of Growing Tourism Locally – a three-year £42million investment project led by VisitEngland and funded in part by the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF), designed to grow domestic tourism and stimulate jobs around the country.
The spring campaign follows the success of the city’s festive campaign, Christmas By Liverpool – and sees the same Partners again joining forces to promote the destination and its strong lifestyle offer. This festive activity was also match-funded by the RGF, through the Growing Tourism Locally project.
Pam Wilsher, Head of Visitor Economy Development at LCR LEP, commented: “We are keen to expand our reach and target a new audience through our spring national advertising campaign by using lifestyle publications.
“Recent campaigns have seen us focus predominantly on culture, but following the success of our retail-themed festive campaign – we are delighted to work with our private sector Partners again to highlight Liverpool’s award-winning retail sector with a strong emphasis on lifestyle. The festive campaign proved extremely popular and we are hoping to build on this success with the spring campaign.
“We believe the new campaign will help place Liverpool in the forefront of people’s minds when planning a city break.”
The Christmas By Liverpool marketing campaign proved very popular with over 20,000 visits to the dedicated microsite on http://www.visitliverpool.com/. This resulted in almost 5,000 new contacts for the VisitLiverpool consumer database, who signed up to receive the monthly VisitLiverpool consumer e-blast. The campaign also featured a competition to win a city break – this became VisitLiverpool’s most popular competition by attracting over 8,000 entries.
Liverpool City Region’s Visitor Economy is a thriving industry which generates visitor spend of £3.1billion a year and is estimated to support 43,300 jobs.