The Challenge

MAGNAFI

Video marketing agency, Magnafi, wanted to generate mass excitement in its home city when the GB Olympic and Paralympic team homecoming parade passed through the streets of Manchester by turning the city GOLD. The team had big dreams, big vision, and masses of support from high profile names in the world of sport and comedy but the challenge came in turning the vision into a reality.  We knew the national media would be covering the parade anyway, so we needed to make sure our Gold campaign stood out by implementing some guerrilla tactics and utilising the power of good PR photography. 

How did we help?

Our strategy was to not only leverage existing Olympics coverage but to amplify the noise we made with some clever guerrilla PR tactics.  Through a campaign, which was supported and fronted by Johnny Vegas, on social media and in the regional and national press we encouraged people to dress in gold, handing out thousands of gold bowler hats to supporters watching the parade to create a sea of gold for our sporting heroes as they passed through the streets of Manchester. 

The Results

Our gold bowler hats made it onto the Team GB parade bus and onto the main stage when Dame Katherine Grainger wore one as she was interviewed by the BBC. We set up live interviews with the founder of Magnafi & the Gold campaign with Sky News, BBC News, ITV Online and LBC radio, as well as regional news and radio. Our hats were seen in almost all the resulting parade coverage including the Guardian, The Daily Mail and the Sun and Gabby Logan talked about how amazing it was to see a sea of gold hats on the BBC coverage of the Homecoming parade.