Shropshire-based brewery, Hobsons, has been going for 30 years – with 2023 marking its 30th year.
 
This is a big achievement in the topsy turvy world of business, when up to 65% of businesses fail to make 10 years.
 
Understandably, the team there wanted to celebrate, and they called us in to shout about their anniversary activities over the course of a 3-month project.

Centring on raising awareness of the brand, while having a positive impact on the bottom line, we broke down our activity into three distinct parts.
 
·      The launch of a special birthday beer. Dirty Gertie. The bingo call for 30.
·      A promotional beer-based bingo tour around Hobsons’ key partner pubs, which saw the team hosting bingo nights and raising money for local charities – not only promoting Hobsons, but also supporting pubs.
·      A huge 30th birthday party at the brewery – where we looked to PR the event to sell tickets and drum up excitement.
 
Primarily, we looked to use PR as the main medium to highlight each aspect to the appropriate audience.
 
Much of it was centred on local press – as Hobsons wanted people to attend the bingo nights and to come to the party – but we also looked to engage with trade press and national media where applicable too.
 
Our remit didn’t stop at the three parts outlined above, as we also supported Hobsons with PR around other news that occurred during that period, such as their appointment of a new Head Brewer and various award wins.
 
To support all of the PR activity, our video and photography team captured footage across multiple shoots, which provided content for Hobsons’ marketing collateral across the entirety of their marketing activity ­– having captured shots of the new beer, as well video to showcase the brewery.
 
We also filmed on the day of party, capturing footage of the event as it happened.

Over the three months of the campaign, Hobsons saw more than 60 pieces of PR coverage – which included a swathe of local coverage, such as Shropshire Live, the Shropshire Star and the Ludlow Advertiser.
 
But also product placement in the likes of the Mail Online, as well as broadcast interviews on local radio such as BBC Radio Shropshire, and leading beer podcasts such as Daftaboutcraft.
 
The Hobsons’ team’s use of the imagery captured by our video team saw the brand’s social media following shoot up, as did its video engagement with more than 16,000 views of the main video content we’ve produced.
 
The associated imagery was also an integral component of our PR success, helping to contribute to the wider haul of coverage thanks to eye-catching visuals.
 
On top of this, the 30th birthday party was a sell-out event too – with incredible feedback from the day.
 
And, following the success of our initial 3-month partnership, Hobsons has now signed up to work with us until the end of 2023, where we’ll be embarking on further campaigns to enhance the brewery’s brand awareness moving into 2024.