2018 proved to be another busy year for AM+A with multiple awards, new account wins and some stellar campaigns that reached millions across the globe. Here are ten of the team’s highlights from the past year…
1. Multiple award-winners
In July AM+A picked up the PRCA DARE ‘Campaign Challenges’ award for our work on the Paisley City of Culture 2021 bid, a campaign that also won best ‘Arts, Culture or Sport Campaign’ at the CIPR Excellence, seeing off competition from Paddy Power, Sony and The Great British Bake Off.
The World Travel Market Travel and Tourism Awards saw us highly commended for Best Tourism Marketing Agency as a result of our work on the Slovenian Tourist Board’s World Bee Day campaign. In the same awards Slovenia won ‘Best in Wellness’ for their Healthy Waters campaign.
2. Surge in sustainable tourism to Slovenia
We continued to showcase Slovenia as a leading green destination through responsible tourism campaigns and focused messages. Our projects included working with specialist influencers like gardening guru Huw’s Nursery to showcase sustainable tourism initiatives. Our press trip programme focused on alternative travel and lesser known parts of the country.
Visitor numbers have increased throughout the country, leading to British Airways announcing a new route for summer 2019. From January to the end of August in 2018 Slovenia recorded 27 percent more British visitors in Slovenia than in the same period last year.
3. Our busiest World Travel Market to date
Another first for AM+A at this year’s WTM - three stand events in one day! We worked tirelessly in August to ensure over 400 people attended our clients’ media and trade stand events to generate business leads. As a result our clients dominated the travel trade media, with over 367,000 impressions in major trade media outlets.
Over on social media, our content generated over 356K impressions and 4,719 profile visits for clients. Twitter engagement more than doubled for some clients, with the total of 26.8K impressions in September increasing to 73.2K in October and 37.3K for November so far. This proves that we can create some huge results from the WTM!
4. Hosting an iconic event at House of Commons
In late 2018 we co-organised one of the biggest tourism events of the year to celebrate 100 years of Polish independence in the the House of Commons. The exclusive gala dinner was attended by leading MPs, editors, journalists, tourism representatives and other VIPs.
BBC World presenter Kasia Madera hosted the evening and world famous Polish artist Rafal Olbinski discussed cultural Poland supported by poetry from Ian Lukins. The event acted as an incredible launch and showcase to Poland in 2019!
5. Working with Island Records and superstar Sean Paul
In PR a little creativity goes a long way. Early this year AM+A led a collaboration between TAXIAPP, Island Records and superstar Sean Paul as part of the world’s first taxi speed dating app for Valentine’s day.
The event was attended by world’s largest news agency, Reuters, as well as the UK’s leading dating bloggers. It also coincided with Sean Paul’s new hit single, Mad Love. Island Records created a viral video of the event which was showcased to Sean Paul’s 1.37 million Twitter followers. Coverage for the event was generated in national media including the Metro, Time Out Magazine (and newsletter) and LadBible.com
6. World Bee Day gains official UN Recognition
On the 20th May 2018 the World’s first UN back World Bee Day took place. AM+A were at the forefront of Slovenia’s World Bee Day campaign, which generated high profile international press coverage including The Guardian, CNN and The New York Times - reaching an audience of over 176,767,337.
AM+A’s work on the campaign helped Slovenia secure UN backing for the first ever World Bee Day. Our initial activity led to a four-year national tourist board campaign, including representation at the World Travel Market.
7. Hold the front page!
2018 was a year of front page coverage for AM+A. Slovenia featured on the front cover of both The Times travel supplement and Lonely Planet magazine (as part of a huge 14-page feature). Both articles highlighted Slovenia as one of Europe’s ‘must visit’ destinations for 2019. Meanwhile, a group fatbiking press trip organised for Bridgend County in South Wales led to a front page feature in Flybe’s inflight magazine Flight Time.
8. Bridgend welcomes BBC Breakfast (and others)
The Porthcawl Elvis Festival is one of the biggest highlights in South Wales’ cultural calendar. Thousands of Elvis aficionados lining the beautiful Welsh coast - what’s not to love?
The event has always been a great source of coverage for the destination. This year the results were better than ever - not only were we able to host BBC Breakfast for a four-minute segment on the festival, we were able to generate coverage in the biggest daily newspapers including an image-led feature in the Mail Online. Our activity helped Elvis Fest 2018 reach over 3.5 million people.
9. Collaborating with The East India Company
This year we partnered with purveyors of fine tea The East India Company to host an exclusive food and tea pairing event at The Angel Hotel in Abergavenny. We worked with leading regional influencers, freelancers and national magazines, securing numerous features in publications such as the Independent, Olive Magazine and BBC Good Food. The results are unanimous - The Angel is home to the best afternoon tea in Wales!
10. Our client list continues to grow
We continue to get noticed for our innovation, creativity and top quality work. This year we were able to retain our largest accounts while picking up some exciting new clients along the way. This included a two-year integrated PR and digital marketing campaign with the Wales Coast Path, the world’s first uninterrupted route along a national coast along with a couple of national tourist boards. There will also be some big announcements in early 2019, so watch this space!
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