Any huge event, be it a concert tour, royal wedding or sport activity, offers brilliant opportunities to marketers. Next year, London will host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, which makes companies busy these days, getting ready for new clients and partners from abroad. A range of brands including Cadbury, BMW, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola have already started the promotional activity, and now the governments also steps in with a new campaign dedicated to the event. On September 21, the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced the GREAT promotion, which is led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and aimed at showcasing the best in the country to attract new investors and tourists.
Photo: Posters featuring King Henry VIII of England and Richard Branson
The new campaign by Mother London includes a series of visuals featuring the UK national flag and the reasons why the country is really great, highlighting its achievements in a range of fields, including sports, innovation, knowledge, shopping, creativity to name but a few. The ‘Entrepreneurs are GREAT’ poster features Virgin Group founder and chairman Richard Branson in front of an airplane, in the bottom of the poster there is a statement saying that “The easiest place to set up a business in Europe.” The other well-known characters fronting the images are animated friends Wallace and Gromit (Creativity) as well as King Henry VIII of England (Heritage). Click here to view all of them.
The promotional push, which helps demonstrate the ‘national treasures’ in a number of areas, is already supported by a range of companies including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd, Burberry and UK branch of Deutsche Bank among others. “We applaud the vision of the new GREAT campaign. As a global brand with a proud British heritage, we fully support its aim of raising international awareness of the country’s unique assets and tremendous opportunities for inward investment,” says Angela Ahrendts, Chief Executive Officer, Burberry.
“In 2012 there will be only one place to be. With the Olympic and Paralympic Games coming to London next summer, the greatest show on earth is about to arrive in one of the world’s greatest cities. We are determined to make the most of this unprecedented opportunity to ensure we deliver a lasting economic legacy that will benefit the whole country. This campaign is simple. There are so many great things about Britain and we want to send out the message loud and proud that this is a great place to do business, to invest, to study and to visit,” stated the Prime Minister in New York, commenting the new campaign.
The Prime Minister also announced a ‘Global Investment Conference’, which will we hosted by UK Trade & Investment in London for investors and business leaders shortly before the Games. The program will include a set of business events, both offline like ‘British Business Embassy’ summits dedicated to key sectors for global growth, and online like ‘British Business Club’, and “is expected to generate, over time, at least a £1 billion boost for British business,” states the press release.
The officials say that the country will experience a boost of tourism activity and attract millions of new visitors ahead of the event, during the Games and after them, which will result in more revenue. According to the press release, “the sector already contributes £115 billion each year to the UK economy and has the potential to be one of the fastest growing sectors in the years ahead. The Government aims to attract an extra four million visitors to the country over the next four years.” The campaign will certainly contribute to this.