Christmas Cheer Despite Covid Restrictions

Due to a difficult year for everybody including our high streets, our planned Christmas PR and marketing campaigns for Chichester BID were more complex than usual with the needs of the community constantly changing and the importance of striking the right tone of voice during an incredibly sensitive time.

It was vital that we found a balance between encouraging people into the city to support shops and businesses whilst also respecting and adhering to the government’s guidelines to protect people’s health and safety.

With this in mind, we devised a ‘Christmas Pledge’ campaign to build on the work we had delivered throughout the year and encourage the public to shop local and help make a real difference to Chichester’s business community. Whether that meant visiting shops in person or supporting them in other ways such as shopping online or buying gift vouchers. To support the campaign we created a hashtag and easily recognisable graphics that could be used across social media and shared by businesses and shoppers in order to spread the word and encourage more people to take part in the pledge. The campaign had a positive response with a high rate of engagement and reach on social media platforms compared to the other concurrent campaigns at that time.

Other key activities organised by the BID for Christmas included the annual Fairy Tale Trail and Window Display Competition. With an existing strategy implemented earlier in the year for the competition, we worked hard alongside the BID to rapidly adjust plans when the nation was placed in another lockdown in November. Activity for this popular campaign included organising a celebrity judge (Eastenders actor Christopher Timothy) and encouraging the public to vote for their favourite window in the People’s Choice category. We secured a high volume of local press coverage about the competition both on the radio and in print and despite restrictions both the Fairy Tale Trail and Window Competition were successful in drawing the public to the city in a safe, Covid conscious way.

To support all of the festive campaigns we delivered an extensive digital strategy utilising the BID’s website, direct marketing channels and social media platforms. We achieved a total organic reach of over 40,000 on Facebook and Instagram for key Christmas content published during November – December. We also managed the design and production of all advertising and marketing materials including the Festivities Brochure outlining all activities and campaigns carried out by the BID in 2020.