The London Mint Office looked to us to support the launch original George V silver threepence coins to the public by creating excitement around the threepence.
To do this, we outlined the following objectives:
- Bring the George V silver threepence to life through imaginative storytelling.
- Gain regional and national media attention for the threepence and the hobby of coin collecting between family generations.
- Create social engagement for the threepence coin.
- Support sales of the threepence coin.
PR:
- 127 pieces of coverage secured with a total reach of 295 million.
- The George V silver threepence was the most successful coin launch in The London Mint Office’s history, with 26,000 orders placed within the first 48hrs of the launch.
- The campaign secured online and print coverage in national titles, including The Daily Telegraph, Mail Online, The Daily Express, Independent and The Sun.
- Further coverage secured in regional titles like Wales Online, Bristol Live, The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post, Hull Live, to name a few.
- We worked with Blackadder legend Sir Tony Robinson to organise a series of TV adverts and social media videos to promote the coin.
- We found a coin collecting father and son to participate in the filming alongside Sir Tony to further demonstrate the campaign’s main objective; to encourage family members across generations to pick up a traditional hobby like coin collecting.
- Their story was told in a broadcast piece on BBC Leicestershire and shared from BBC News’ main Facebook account to 50m fans and its Twitter account to 10.5m followers.
Social:
- Created a total of 70 posts - for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - to promote the coin launch.
- Facebook content engagement increased by 56% during the campaign, with 10,000 organic engagements.
- Twitter content engagement increased by 106% and Instagram content engagement increased by 365% during the campaign.
How we did it
The silver threepence is one of Britain’s longest serving coins, having been a staple in British life for nearly 500 years. First introduced during the reign of Edward VI in 1551, the coin was used by people of all standing throughout British society in everyday life from the late Tudor era all the way up until the first World War.
Being a coin that has connected generations for centuries, The London Mint Office wanted to share a limited number of original George V silver threepence coins as an initiative to encourage Britain’s older and younger generations to spend quality time together.
The campaign began in July with the coin launch taking place at the start of November. A TV campaign was also planned, with Sir Tony Robinson, which would run throughout 2020.
To bring the story of the George V silver threepence to life and promote the hobby of coin collecting, we developed three campaign activities.
- Launch a nationwide survey to find out if younger and older still share traditional hobbies together.
- Use the survey results to find coin collecting case studies in the UK who would share their stories about how the hobby of collecting coins brings them closer together.
- Develop a national media launch release to create a buzz for the threepence.
Commissioning a national survey, we asked 1,900 people to answer questions about the role of hobbies in their family household. What we found was a ‘generational hobby gap’ between younger and older family members. While 94% of older family members felt sharing hobbies made their bond closer with younger family members, only 40% actually did.
That finding kickstarted our campaign. We created a regionalised press release to promote the survey findings and issued a letter to editors across the UK to call on coin collectors who shared their hobby with a family member to get in touch.
We combined our PR activity with social media shout outs through The London Mint Office social media channels and coin collecting communities on Reddit.
With 16 pieces of coverage secured across the UK in the first phase of the campaign, we found our campaign duo, father-and-son, John and Jacob. We spoke with John and organised for him and Jacob to meet Sir Tony Robinson for our TV advert and social media videos.
To build up to the coin launch, we shared the video clips of John and Jacob with Sir Tony across social media, while we drafted our national coin launch press release and media pitches.
On November 4th, the George V silver threepence coin launch started and our national press release went viral. Appearing in local, regional and national titles - including The Daily Telegraph, Mail Online, The Daily Express The Sun and Independent - the coin launch was covered in every part of the UK.
The campaign was a huge success. Within the first 48 hours, 26,000 orders for the coin had been placed and The London Mint Office had received more orders than for any other coin launch.
