Case Study: An Enlightened Evening at RSA House

Client: RSA House
Campaign: An Enlightened Evening (part of a 12 month PR campaign)
Brief: To re-launch RSA House to the conference and events market following a £3 million pound refurbishment and restoration
Objectives:

• To launch RSA House to its new target markets, raising awareness of the venue
  
• To re-position RSA House as a 5 star venue and market leader at incorporating technology into meetings and events
  
• To raise awareness of the venue’s many rooms and how they can be utilised in a variety of different ways
  
• To specifically promote the various attributes of RSA including food and service
  

Action: As buyers make decisions based on experience, it was decided the campaign should centre on a showcase event at RSA House. The event would demonstrate every aspect of the venue and the advanced technology it offers. The theme ‘An Enlightened Evening’ reminiscent of the society’s strap-line, ‘Enlightened Thinking’ was adopted.

A communication sub-campaign to promote the showcase event complemented and extended its theme. The sub-campaign was used to give buyers an understanding of the venue and demonstrate it understood the various communication and technology methods event organisers need. The sub-campaign used printed collateral, a QR code, social media sites LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest with #EnlightenedEvening, as well as a press campaign and the creation of a micro-site.
 
At the Enlightened Evening event, guests were taken on a journey of the unexpected, centred on the venue and the many event experiences possible.  An ethereal contact juggler greeted guests at the entrance as they signed in on an interactive touch screen, where their picture was taken and displayed and then appeared on another screen in a further meeting room. This meant that guests instantly knew who else had arrived and their Twitter handles, plus any tweets that were being written about the night.
 
Guests were led to the Benjamin Franklin room and served molecular canapés including ham hock with pea “soup” on a spoon, mushroom and truffle oil caviar jelly on toast and juniper cured salmon with vodka syrup pipette. Molecular cocktails including sparkling based passion fruit and vanilla caviar were served alongside reverse Cosmo’s and apple martinis.

After an address announcing the formal re-launch of the venue, guests were lead to the Great Room where they were given a spectacular display of the AV equipment including HD screen, 7.1 surround sound and LED lighting. Molecular food offered was based on Georgian banquet food styling.
 
Having been steadily mesmerised by the technology, food and drink, a Sinatra impersonator appeared on screen beckoning guests down to his jazz club in the vaults, thereby demonstrating the venue’s ability to live stream from one room to another, while showing off the venue’s Christmas package.
 
The entire event was recorded on video and camera with vox pops taken from delighted guests and edited into a three minute video, distributed with images and a press release. Tweets and re-Tweets supported media coverage gained.
 
To maintain RSA’s profile the venue was entered into Event’s Top 20 Venues and won a place.

Results:

• The first press release announcing the end of the £3 million   refurbishment achieved Venue of the Week in Event magazine’s newsletter, which remained for one week, and eight further pieces of coverage on event and conference industry publications and marketing organisations reaching 170,000 unique users and achieving coverage worth £30K
  
• The micro-site received a number of hits as soon as the print invitation was received. It reached a peak when the e-invite was sent out, accumulating over 1,700 hits
  
• The email invitation distributed to 4,600 was immediately opened by 1,773 people
  
• The party grabbed recipients’ attention so much that the guest list reached 500
  
• The Twt Poll saw 226 guests engage with the venue, pre-event, by voting for the food and drink they would prefer
  

• The Twitter campaign showed the number of followers increasing from 1,192 on 30th July to 1,395 on 1st October
  
• Pinterest showed a flurry of activity with re-pins of the Troika chandeliers, architecture and rooms and a steady stream of followers
  
• The printed invitation sent out on 24th August went to 500 key event buyers, agencies and journalists. Comments received from the invitation ranged from ‘really cool and different invitation’ to ‘it caught my eye and stood out from the usual fare’
  

---