CIPR award shortlisting for Freshfield’s regeneration PR campaign

Freshfield has been shortlisted at this year’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) regional PRide Awards for a campaign which put Preston’s regeneration story firmly in the national spotlight.

We’ve been named finalists in the Best Use of Media Relations North West category for our work with Preston City Council and Preston Partnership.

The brief was to devise a strategy to communicate the opening of a new Wallace and Gromit bench sculpture and the launch of Preston’s £20.9m Town Deal, an investment programme that would kickstart £200m worth of cultural regeneration in the city’s Harris Quarter.

Our objectives were to secure national media coverage for the official unveiling of the sculpture, attended by Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park, allowing Preston to tell its wider story to a national audience while addressing perceptions about the city’s regeneration strategy.

The campaign resulted in coverage on media outlets including The One Show, BBC Online, ITV News, the Daily Telegraph and the Independent, and content featuring in publications as far afield as India and the US. In total we secured over 107 pieces of media coverage, an estimated 3.9m online coverage views and 7.92 million ‘opportunities to see’ on television.

Freshfield’s CEO Simon Turner said: “We thoroughly enjoyed working with Preston City Council, Preston Partnership, Nick and his team to create a national attention-grabbing day for the bench opening and for the city. We’re thrilled that it has made the shortlist.”

The winners will be announced at a virtual awards ceremony on Wednesday October 12.

Find out more about our campaign by reading our client story.