Advertising & Design Agency

Sefton Tourism and Marketing Southport are looking to engage an agency to;

Plan and manage a series of three seasonal advertising campaigns (spring, summer, autumn).
To design and produce the annual Southport Visitor Guide
To provide creative concepts for three tourism managed events

For costs which are to be included in the above see the relevant budget section


Background

The town underwent a rebranding exercise during the summer / autumn of 2016. Extensive research, including input from existing and potential customers, resulted in the ‘Southport – Different Every Time’ brand. This campaign needs to reflect this refreshing of the destination brand in terms of media, tone of voice and audience.

The town’s vision is to be ‘A classic seaside town that is more contemporary and dynamic, merging the old and the new; diverse in its offer, embracing creative industries, digital technology and youthful endeavour, in a high quality leisure, retail, historic and public space offer for those who live in, work in and visit the town’.

The successful agency will be required to work closely with Sefton’s tourism team. They will also need to provide ‘end of campaign’ reports for each of the seasonal campaigns, these to provide a complete overview of activity and achievements to fully inform the Marketing Southport Board.
As well as this brief there are three additional documents which should provide the information required to plan the campaigns, media to be used and creative;

Marketing plan, which matches our target audiences with the relevant Mosaic segments to assist in media planning – particularly radio. It also shows our current visitor profiles and ‘potential’ audiences. A note of caution on this section though. The current profile is based on data held on our e-database. The majority of which has been secured from those requesting a Visitor Guide – either in print or digitally. Therefore representation from those who have been touched by radio, social media etc. will be under-represented. However, it will provide a guide.

Audience profile document which provides an overview of who our potential audiences are, how they holiday and their media consumption. It is understood that the budget is not sufficient to engage with all media over three campaigns and it is suggested that digital and radio are prioritised. Although an argument for some press / magazine / outdoor advertising may be accepted, particularly for the summer campaign.

Brand Toolkit, which illustrates how to use the brand and contains logos, colours, fonts and examples of how these can be incorporated into print and digital media.

Budgets

Seasonal campaigns: The agency will be responsible for creative concepts and booking of any outdoor, print and other agreed media.
Radio (circa £50,000) will be booked via our media agency and social media spend (circa £15,000) will be paid direct by tourism, they do not therefore need to be included in the costed proposal.

All elements of each campaign should be costed in the submission, this includes agency campaign management costs.

There will be a requirement for:

• Social media creative – Facebook, Instagram & Twitter
• Visitsouthport.com website creative and copy
• Radio station web creative – MPU’s, HTO’s etc
• Other media activity e.g. outdoor, press / magazine advertising design and media cost)

The budget for this is £40,000

Annual Visitor Guide: The guide’s purpose is to attract staying visitors to Southport as well as those coming for a day trip. The guide will promote the many attractions, events and other things to do as well as the range of accommodation providers in the resort. Along with the Visit Southport website www.visitsouthport.com, the guide will be used as the main response mechanism by the tourism team in fulfilling visitor enquiries. The guide will also be distributed on a national, regional and local level as well as being distributed at tourism exhibitions attended by the tourism team and partners.

The print run will be 50,000, B5 in size and is to be completed and delivered by mid-December 2020. The 2019 guide can be viewed here - www.visitsouthport.com/info/maps-and-guides. The format for the 2021 guide is likely to be similar, although alternatives may be considered.

The budget for this is £27,500 to include all agency, design, print and delivery costs. (advertising sales to offset cost will be undertaken by CMG, so no sales function needed within the successful agency).

Events: The agency will provide creative concepts for the three tourism managed events – Southport Food & Drink Festival, Southport Air Show & British Musical Fireworks Championship. Information on these events can be found in the What’s On section of visitsouthport.com

There will be a requirement for:

• Outdoor (creative only, for our own gateway and banner sites, print and installation will be undertaken by our own contractor)
• Social media creative – Facebook, Instagram & Twitter – this will include relevant header images and a creative advertising campaign.
• Visitsouthport.com website creative – there are a number of different sized elements of artwork that are needed across the website.
• Radio script and radio station web creative – MPU’s, HTO’s etc. (Southport Air Show & British Musical Fireworks Championship)

The budget for this is £6,000. As with the seasonal campaigns, radio and digital advertising costs are not included in the budget.

General Information

The sections relating to travel trade and conferences in the marketing plan can be ignored, they do not form part of this brief.
Brand guidelines and images to support creative concepts are available from steve.christian@sefton.gov.uk
Requests for additional information should be made via the messaging facility in The Chest Portal or by contacting Steve Christian at steve.christian@sefton.gov.uk

Summary

The ARFQ proposal should be fully costed, include examples of creative thinking (e.g. an example digital creative / message for one of the seasonal campaigns).

The total value of this contract is £73,500