How Grayling Scotland enchanted the papers when Alnwick Castle and the Alnwick Garden appointed Christian Perdrier

Alnwick Castle is a glorious medieval castle, which doubles as Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter films, and is residence of the Duke of Northumberland. The Alnwick Garden, just a few minutes walk from the Castle, is one of the world's most exciting contemporary gardens. PR agency Grayling Scotland was appointed in October 2009 to handle the appointment of Frenchman Christian Perdrier to the role of CEO for both Alnwick Castle and the Alnwick Garden. Perdrier has over 30 years’ experience in the leisure, entertainment and hospitality sector and had previously been a senior vice president at Disneyland Paris.

The decision to merge two very different attractions created a problem, as it involved putting the two attractions’ respective public and private statuses in direct opposition. Perdrier’s appointment had the potential to complicate relationships with local authorities, suppliers and consumers – and, at worst, could detrimentally affect visitor numbers.

The communications challenge was therefore to make the commercial case for a new strategic direction for Alnwick.

The strategyIt was decided to make a virtue of Christian Perdrier’s previous role at Disneyland Paris for the creative benefit of the campaign. Despite being accused of ‘Disney-fying’ gardening in the past, the intriguing link between Perdrier’s Disney training and his arrival at ‘Hogwarts’ became the major creative strand for the campaign.

The tacticsThe PR tactics included hand-picking specific journalists who were known advocates of the Duchess of Northumberland and Alnwick Garden. A series of carefully managed interviews were set up and agreed with each journalist to break the news on the same day. These media targets were:

· Chris Tighe, Financial Times
· Andrew Norfolk, The Times
· Martin Wainwright, The Guardian
· Karen Dent, Newcastle Journal

A Saturday was chosen to launch the coverage because of the feature-led approach taken by most daily papers on that day of the week. Each interview was accompanied with a photo shoot, comprehensive briefing paper and press release.

The resultsThe resulting coverage generated a large amount of interest and the follow-up press release was received around the world framed by the substantial exposure guaranteed by the exclusives. High-impact coverage in influential, national media prompted a large number of national, regional and international media to follow up the story in a positive manner.

The four initial exclusives all ran as page lead articles with The Journal running a front-page story. In total the campaign generated 89 individual cuttings with coverage including:

- The Guardian
- The Financial Times
- The Sunday Times
- The Times
- Le Figaro
- BBC Online
- USA Today
- Scotland on Sunday
- Telegraph.co.uk
- Press Association
- Yahoo! Spain & UK
- Business Week Online

The story became an online hit with over 50 separate online articles appearing with many overseas in countries such as France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Portugal and America.

Independent evaluation (evaluation by Durrants Media Monitoring) of the value of the print coverage secured suggests a total value of £237,885.21 – a return on investment of 108 times the total of £2,200 paid by the client. The estimated total circulation of that print coverage (so not including online or broadcast) is over 4 million people.

Christian Perdrier said: “Not only was my arrival at Alnwick widespread national news, it was a widely acknowledged industry first. I have not had to explain my arrival to any key stakeholders and in every case my strategic vision has been positively received. This can only be due to the effects of the PR campaign implemented by Grayling Scotland.”

When?The campaign was in November 2009.

How much?The budget was under £5,000.