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25%

of visitors 'New to Kew'

60%

YoY ticket sales revenues

Smashed!

all performance benchmarks

Possiblist moment!

Translating the transient beauty of Japan’s iconic sakura season into a radio ad spot that stopped listeners in their tracks

Andy McLane

Creative Director

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Objective

Spring blossoming has been a seasonal highlight of Kew’s year for over a century. And one of its best-kept secrets. 

This all-too-brief West London version of Japan’s hanami festivals deserved a bigger audience. Kew’s collaboration with the Royal College of Music in the preparation of six exclusive pieces, that translated the visual, site-specific experience of the blossoms into pure sound.

Our task? To give this all-too-brief flowering of sound a radio ad campaign that would get it the attention it deserves:

  • Use the magical moment to draw in visitors who are new to Kew
  • Raise ticket revenues for the out-of-season month of March.

Solution

Even more so than a TV ad, where there is always an element of ‘lean in’, even in the age of second- screening, a radio ad usually sits somewhere in the background of the listener’s consciousness.

We are not invited. So a radioad ad must interrupt whatever our listener is doing. Make them sitt up and listen

We developed a perfect, 30-second sound story to convey something of this short-lived, can’t miss experience.

Just listen:

 

We targeted Dax’ Home + Garden and Gardening segments within a convenient travel time (40km) of Kew in the latter half of March.

At a slower time of year for garden events, Dax’ inventory was under priced for its effectiveness in reaching people we knew were most likely to visit Kew out of peak season.

We were confident we could beat the platform’s ‘completed listens’ benchmarks, and with that KPI prove a) our audience had been correctly targeted b) awareness was blooming and c) our creative was engaging, resonant and effective.

Results

The audio campaign was a huge success for both our key targets: 

  1. Over 25% of surveyed visitors to Kew in the campaign period were first time visitors (an above-average proportion younger visitors 18-34)
  2. Ticket sales for the campaign period leapt 60%.

In addition, the campaign period saw total visitors up 35% YoY.

And we comfortably outperformed the platform benchmark KPIs for completed listens for both audience segments:

Audience Benchmark completed listens Campaign performance Performance over-target (%)
Home + Garden 90% 97.5% 8.3%
Gardening 90% 93.5% 3.9%

 

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At Anything is Possible, we take a different approach. Experienced in all fields of media, we’ll work in partnership with you to shape and execute strategies, campaigns and media plans that propel your brand and resonate with your audience.

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