Summary

Royal Ascot provides a fantastic day out, yet the event was starting to lose its lustre. This case study shows how we started to get Ascot back on the list of ‘must-attend’ events.

The Challenge

There are many more experiences now available to claim people’s time and money; music festivals, mini-breaks, myriad sporting events, box sets etc. Royal Ascot noticed bookings were coming through later each season. In short, the key week at Ascot, Royal Ascot, was beginning to lose relevance and appeal to the ‘Netflix Generation'.

Our task was to put Royal Ascot back on the radar as a highly desirable experience.

Our Approach

A day at Royal Ascot is a day full of real-life drama. It is an event full of spectacle; the dress, the people watching, the sight of so many people roaring for their horse, the amazing food, the choice of horse and jockey to bet on, the chance of winning, as well as the thunderous noise and excitement of seeing some of the world’s best horses and jockeys competing so intensely all build the drama of the day.

Our target audience increasingly turn to Netflix to enjoy the latest drama at home. We decided to use this behaviour as a pivot for our campaign.

We launched with a Netflix-inspired trailer followed by a large-scale multi-channel campaign. The single driving thought was ‘Be part of the drama’.

The Campaign

The Results

The campaign launched in early 2020 to build excitement during the time people were planning their summer, and to generate early bookings.

Due to the pandemic the campaign was pulled off-air after just one burst.

We monitor all our work very closely, and the results were anyway encouraging.

60% of those who saw the campaign said they had an improved opinion of Ascot, and 58% said they were more likely to consider going to Ascot. Early bookings for both entry and dining were up.

The campaign has been able to work across all touchpoints for Ascot – from TV to OOH to print to digital to social to in-event messaging. And it has been enthusiastically picked up by the Ascot team to use in all their messaging.

A funny old year

Despite the total closure of Ascot to spectators, racing has continued behind closed doors. We extended the campaign to encourage home participation in the full Royal Ascot experience.