Halloween Derry ~ Strabane

Evaluation2015

Background Information• The Halloween Marketing Campaign kicked off approximately 6 weeks before Halloween with

a Highlights flyer x 10,000 distributed in the City and District on Culture Night

• We invested a marketing budget of £25,000

• We reached an audience of over 7.5 million people through our marketing campaign

• We reached an audience of over 1.4 million online via Facebook and Twitter impressions alone

• Our new subsite – derrystrabane.com/halloween achieved 80, 423 page views online (15th

September – 4th November)

• Live Stream of Parade – Over 1000 people tuned in LIVE from all across the World! (At time of evaluation over 8,000 views)

1.To affirm the city’s position and reputation of hosting an unparalleled Hallowe’encarnival throughout Ireland

2. To win #1 ‘Best Halloween Destination’ through the USA Today Readers Poll

3. Attract approximately 45,000 to the city to experience the Hallowe’en carnival (increase of over 5% from 2014 Target)

•Target of 40% local, 30% NI, 20% ROI and 10% Other•Aggressively promoting for short breaks •Raise awareness in targeted markets

4. Maintain/Improve upon high occupancy levels from 2014 Occupancy – 85.72% (30th Oct, 31st Oct, 1st Nov)

Objectives

5. Increased visitor spend to be measured through on-street surveys.

6. Increase profile of new events in national and international media.

7. Achieve an AVE value of £150,000 over duration of campaign (Over 10% increase on £135,705 AVE 2014)

8. Increase the number of registrations on the E-zine Database by 25%

9. Increase pageviews / website traffic by 25% (from 107, 279)

10. Increase Facebook likes 25% (currently at 13,000) along with maintaining a level of engagement on par with previous campaigns of 10% or more

Objectives

Key Events During HalloweenDerry ~ Londonderry

1. Chateau le Fear 16th October – 1st November2. Awakening the Walls 29th October – 30th October3. Guildhall and Tower Museum Little Horrors 29th October – 31st October4. Gruesome Guildhall Square Events 29th October – 31st October5. Rise of the River Gods Carnival Parade 31st October

Strabane

1. Alley Theatre Kids Workshops 27th October – 31st October2. Trick or Treat Trails 30th October3. Melvin Mysterious Funday 29th October4. Family Fun Area Strabane Town Centre 31st October5. Fireworks Finale 31st October

Target Markets and SegmentationAttract approximately 45,000 to the city to experience the Hallowe’en carnival (increase of over 5% from 2014 Target)•Target of 40% local, 30% NI, 20% ROI and 10% Other

Derry Cityside57%

Derry Rural10%

Derry Waterside8%

Outside Ireland2%

Rest of NI8%

ROI11%

Strabane4%

Where do you live?

Derry 75%NI 12%ROI 11%Outside Ireland 2%

Marketing Activity OverviewACTIVITY CHANNEL WEIGHT DATES

TV TV3 Event Guide 10 Sec 5th– 11th Oct

RADIO HighlandiRadio

10 day campaign 22nd – 31st Oct

PRESS National & Local Single Insertions October

OUTDOOR Bus( Supersides)48 SheetAdshel

30 Buses (20 Belfast, 10 Derry)1 x 48 Sheet (Prismatic, John Street, Derry)5 Locations (Belfast, Derry, Coleraine, Limavady)

5th – 18th Oct

DIGITAL Whats on NIUTV Online PlayerMirror UK HPTODerry Journal / Londonderry Sentinel Display Ads

50,000 Impressions50,000 Impressions1 day takeover on Homepage mirror.co.uk2000 impressions

October

SOCIAL MEDIA FacebookTwitter

Sustained Engagement on FacebookNew Twitter Platform set up mid September

August / September / October

PR Regional and NationalBroadcast

Kantar Report Due From Mid September

PRINT 4 pp Flyer - highlights48 Page Brochure – All Strabane and Derry Events Trifold Flyer and Posters (Strabane Only)

4pp Flyers (Derry Strabane Delivered)48 Page Brochure (delivered regionally)Trifold Flyer and Posters (Strabane Only)

18th Sept10th Oct23rd Oct

Example of some Design / Marketing Materials Produced

Leaderboard

Vinyl BannersSkyscraper

Results Achieved

Objective Target/Measure Result Comments

1. To affirm the city’s position and reputation of hosting an unparalleled Hallowe’en carnival throughout Ireland

Positive Reflection of Carnival and Events

Visitor NumbersGeographical Profile

Achieved – extremelypositive reviews and

feedback online

Could be pushed more heavilly by Tourism Ireland and Tourism Northern Ireland –Opportunity for 2016 through ‘Best Halloween Destination’ Accolade

2. To win #1 ‘Best Halloween Destination’ through the USA Today 10 Best Readers Poll

#1 #1 Fantastic Accolade which will be invaluable for 2016 Marketing Campaign

3. Attract approximately 45,000 to the city to experience the Hallowe’encarnival (increase of over 5% from 2014 Target)

45,000 50,000+ Biggest ever turnoutFantastic Feedback on all aspects of the Event

4. Maintain/Improve upon high occupancy levels from 2014 Occupancy – 85.72% (30th Oct, 31st

Oct, 1st Nov)

85% + Friday 30th – 70%Saturday 31st – 99%

Sunday 1st Nov –40%Average – 69.6%

Average Excluding Sunday – 84.5%

Lost out on third night of accommodation (Difficult to secure Sunday bookings unless Bank Holiday)

5. Increased visitor spend to be measured through on-street surveys.

Over 50% of those surveryed spent between

£11-£20 per person in their party

25% spent £21-£30 pp

No previous data to compare to.

Results AchievedObjective Target/Measure Result Comments

6. Increase profile of new events in national and international media.

Through the #1 ‘Best Halloween Destination’ campaign, Derry was heavily profiled by USA Today online

7. Achieve an AVE value of £150,000 over duration of campaign (Over 10% increase on £135,705 AVE 2014)

£150,000 £139,606.68 Almost 3% increase. Falling Advertising Revenues are likely to have impacted negatively on our overall AVE figure. Kantar Tracking also misses some channels i.e. iRadio which covered the campaign so not all activity is captured

8. Increase the number of registrations on the E-zineDatabase by 25%

25% 40% Introduced new ezine system and signups generally during the period were up by 40% on 2014

9. Increase pageviews / website traffic by 25% (from 107, 279)

134,098 (25% increase) 80, 433 •Lots of users searching ‘derry city council’ –leading them to old site•New URL not ranked highly in Google Organic Search yet

10. Increase Facebook likes 25% (currently at 13,000) along with maintaining a level of engagement on par with previous campaigns of 10% or more

16,250 likes10% Engagement

15,128 likes9% Engagement

Channel Overview

Website www.derrystrabane.com/halloween 80,423 page views / 60, 774 unique

Social Media FacebookTwitter – new PlatformCombined Reach of 1.4millon

#RiseoftheRiverGods Hashtag 264 tweets / 91,486 impressions / 66, 337 accounts reached

Ezines Sent through: Visit Derry / Tourism NI / What’s on NI

Display Advertising Through UTV Player / What’s on NI / Mirror.co.uk / Derry Journal / Londonderry Sentinel

Live Stream •You Tube – 1078 tuned in live•Over 8,000 views to date (at time of evaluation)

Overview - Performance of Digital Channels

Key Web StatsPage Views/Unique Page Views Country of Origin

Keywords Searched Content Sources

Key Social Media Stats

•New platform

•Set up 18th September

•154 followers

ENGAGEMENT/IMPRESSIONS

Engagements per Follower

5.7

Impressions per Follower

129.5

Engagements per Tweet

12.9

Impressions per Tweet

293.3

Engagements per Impression

4.4%

Twitter

Facebook – Likes / Impressions

Facebook - PTAT

Facebook –Type of Post / Location / Demographics

Facebook Activation - #FinditFriday

• Developed a three week engaging campaign

• Objective of highlighting our Halloween theme ‘Rise of the River Gods’ the events that we gave tickets away for - and raising awareness/engagement with the Halloween Facebook page

METHODOLOGY

• #FinditFriday

• Placed our River God prop in 3 areas

in the City

• People guessed the location to win

Tickets to various events

RESULTS

• Delivered almost 30,000 impressions

• Delivered 900 likes, shares, comments

• 1391 link clicks

• Viral Post!

Saurus - Stole the show

Mark Patterson’s video went

truly viral

Reaching almost 3 million people

1million views

Over 25,000 shares

Comments from all corners

of the world

What’s On NI StatsDisplay Advertising

• Featured Event Panel

x 2 weeks

• 63,000 Impressions

• 0.22% CTR

Dedicated Email

• Sent to 7336

• Open Rate 11%

• CTR 0.4%

UTV Player Stats• 50k Impressions requested

• 57k were delivered.

• 2 separate campaigns ran:

• 1.Live streaming - clicks 1458, click through rate 5.26%

• 2. Pre roll - clicks 2287, click through rate 7.65%

• Average CTR for similar campaigns is 2-5 %

• Our average CTR was 6.48%

• Overall a great performance and a recommended channel

Tourism Ireland Commissioned a videoTargeting the Social Energisers Segment

1810

views

Live Stream• Over 1000 viewed live

• #RiseoftheRiverGods

FAM trips

• 12 Canadian Travel agents – pre fam trip to the TI workshop in Dublin

Wonderful walled city walking tour this morning with Garvin! Great weather as well! We saw the fireworks last night and went to Badgers for a drink after - the group loved the city.Best,Jonathan Sargeant,

Tourism Ireland

• 2 GB Bloggers

• 21 High end incentive operators from ROI &GB

Thank you for the invite – I had the best time, and it was

amazing to finally get to visit Derry and see what it has got to offer, which is a LOT! Thank you

for the above and beyond service, I felt like a Royal for the weekend, you went to the ‘nth’ degree to ensure that we were spoiled rotten and well looked after. I was actually gutted to leave yesterday. Watch out

Derry you are about to get a whole lot busier!

Lorraine Byrne, BDO International (Manchester)

Just wanted to drop you a quick line for anabsolutely amazing weekend in Derry – in fact I thinkI used the word amazing more times in the past fewdays than I’ve done all year! Every part of theweekend was brilliant, from the food to the venues,the hotel, costumes, party, the parade and not tomention Garvan – my god I would have listened tohim all day! It really was a thoroughly enjoyable 2days and I think everyone on the FAM will bespreading the word about Derry.Greg Carew, Abbey Conferences (Dublin)

Translink• Bus Tours scheduled to run Friday 30th and Saturday 31st

October

• Friday didn’t run – not enough interest

• Saturday’s trip ran with 35 passengers

• Opportunity to build upon this next year with increased

level of joint PR

USA Today 10 Best Readers Poll

USA Today 10 Best Readers Poll

The top 10 winners in the category Best

Halloween Destination are as follows:

1.Derry, Northern Ireland2. Anoka, Minn.

3. Salem, Mass.

4. Transylvania, Romania

5. Key West

6. Tucson, Ariz.

7. New Orleans

8. Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.

9. Orlando

10.Los Angeles

Survey Results

•Face to Face surveys carried out in City Centre

Friday and Saturday 30th and 31st October, and

Strabane Town Centre on Saturday 31st

•58 completed surveys Derry

•30 completed surveys Strabane

83%

1%

14%

2%

Reasons for being in the City

Attending the Halloween Festival From Media/Travel Trade Visiting the City Working at the Festival

Survey Results-Derry

Guildhall Children's

Events8%

Parade24%

Fireworks33%

Victoria Market4%

Craft Village5%

Chateau le Fear6%

Funfair7%

Halloween Night Music Events

5% Awakening the Walls

8%

What events do you hope to attend?

46

46

46

42

41

46

5

5

5

7

6

5

2

31

How would you Rate the Overall Event?

How would you rate the Quality of the Event

How would you rate the Atmosphere

How would you rate the Marketing

How would you rate Value for Money

How would you rate the variety of events

How would you rate the elements of the event?

Don't know Average Good Very Good

Press9%

Brochure/Flyer43%

Word of Mouth16%

Outdoor4%

Facebook/Website27%

Twitter1%

How did you hear about the Festival

Definitely82%

Very Liklely16%

Quite Likely2%

Would you attend the event in Future Years

Family Partner Friends On my own

Series1 37 2 9 2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Axi

s Ti

tle

Who did you attend the festival with?

21%

54%

25%

How much did you spend per person in your party?

Under £10 £10 - £20 £21 - £30

Derry Cityside57%

Derry Rural10%

Derry Waterside8%

Outside Ireland2%

Rest of NI8%

ROI11%

Strabane4%

Where do you live?

23

1

9

26

1 night stay 2 night stay 3 night + Day Trip Evening Trip

Duration of your trip

Survey Results-Strabane

80%

7%10%

3%

Attending the HalloweenFestival

Visiting the City Working at the Festival Shopping

Reasons for Being in the Area

Alley Theatre/Strabane Library Kids17%

3 day graffiti Workshop2%

Melvin Sports Centre Funday2%

Haunted House at the Den3%

Fireworks44%

Family Fun Activities Town Centre

18%

Trick or Treat Tours

9%

Castle Street3%

EYC2%

What events have you/do you hope to attend?

3

3

6

1

3

3

2

4

8

1

10

12

16

15

6

12

11

15

13

9

6

15

6

How would you Rate the Overall Event?

How would you rate the Quality of the Event

How would you rate the Atmosphere

How would you rate the Marketing

How would you rate Value for Money

How would you rate the variety of events

Please Rate the Following Elements of the Halloween Festival

Very Good Good Average Poor Very Poor

8%

25%

45%

16%

2%

2% 2%

Effectiveness of Marketing Channels

Press Brochure/Flyer Word of Mouth Facebook/Website Radio Email Alley Theatre

74%

19%

7%

Would you attend the Festival in future years?

Definitely Very Liklely Not sure

94%

3% 3%

Family Partner Friends

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Who did you attend the festival with?

71%

19%

10%

Under £10 £10 - £20 £21 - £30

How much did you spend per person in your party?

10%

90%

Where do you live?

ROI Strabane

46%

54%

What is the duration of your trip?

Day Trip Evening Trip

3%7%

90%

Where did you stay?

Guest House Friends Home

Conclusion

• A well planned and executed campaign, delivered within budget and on time

• Key objectives achieved

• Opportunities to improve on Web Traffic for 2016 due to the new URL not being optimised in Google rankings and a longer lead in time (Recommend that the content is ready for end August/Start September)

• Opportunity to target and invite more tourism from ROI, UK and Rest of the World based on 30th Anniversary in 2016, plus ‘Best Halloween Destination’ Accolade (USA Today ‘10Best Readers Poll’)

• More resources next year would allow Officers on the ground the ability to capture good video footage both during the festival and in the lead up to the festival for social media channels

• Most positively reviewed council event in local media in 2015

• Rise of the River Gods Theme won the hearts and minds of locals and visitors

Conclusion

A

FIRST!