Brewing up success: An integrated marketing campaign for The Great British Beer Festival
Discover how we generated 13.5 million impressions and drove a 248% surge in Great British Beer Festival searches through fully integrated marketing campaigns.
Challenge
To successfully relaunch the Great British Beer Festival in its new Birmingham home, building awareness among both established beer enthusiasts and a new generation of real ale drinkers, whilst driving ticket sales for the 2025 event.
Our integrated approach focused on establishing Birmingham as the vibrant new heart of UK’s number one beer festival, leveraging multiple marketing tactics to create excitement that would translate into measurable business impact through ticket sales.
Solution
We launched an integrated campaign designed to maximise reach and drive ticket sales, using multiple marketing tactics.
The campaign included:
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Rolling strategic OOH placements to build nationwide awareness
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Implementing an always-on press office approach, securing coverage in national, regional, and trade publications
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Crafting tailored media pitches highlighting Birmingham as GBBF's exciting new home
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Activating digital audio exchange ads targeting beverage-interested audiences major UK cities
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Engaging ten beer influencers to create authentic and shareable content to further promote the festival
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Developing the festival's complete brand identity used across all marketing channels
Our OOH strategy targeted high-footfall locations with 210 train station ads across the UK, and three Birmingham billboards, ensuring maximum visibility during the crucial pre-festival period.
Our PR activity ran continuously, securing broadcast interviews and widespread coverage. DAX audio ads launched in late July for the final conversion push. The influencer partnerships focused on authentic beer enthusiasts with strong engagement rates and followings, generating grid content and stories that showcased genuine festival excitement.
Impact
In less than three weeks, we:
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Achieved widespread multi-channel reach, delivering over 60 creative assets across billboards, adshels, bus adverts, digital display ads, and social media platforms including Google Ads, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
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Strong audience engagement and motivation - The campaign resonated deeply, with 73% of smokers finding it motivating—especially 25–34-year-olds, where motivation hit 90%. This heightened awareness drove positive sentiment, with 69% responding positively to the messaging. Importantly, 41% said the campaign encouraged them to quit smoking, and 23% connected it to improved health outcomes.
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Encouraged conversations and community impact with 66% of smokers reporting that the campaign sparked conversations about quitting smoking within their social circles, amplifying the message organically.
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Expanded regional reach via radio across the midlands on the global radio network. This complemented the visual campaign, reinforcing the message to a wider audience.
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Drove digital action and website traffic, successfully directing over 5,800 unique visitors from Birmingham and Solihull to the dedicated website, with 21% arriving through direct traffic, showing strong recall and motivation to seek support after encountering the campaign.