We’re always dead chuffed when a campaign leads to direct – and utterly measurable – commercial benefits.
Building on the media storm we created around the “Silver penny for every baby” story last summer, The Royal Mint team set themselves to task again to associate the 1,000 year old organisation with another significant national royal event – the upcoming first birthday of bonny Prince George.
We had a gift to help us to tell the story – that The Royal Mint would be striking a commemorative sterling silver £5 coin to mark his first birthday, the very first time any member of the royal family has been honoured in this way.
A quick press release later, and we had a film crew from Sky News in South Wales filming the first coins being struck and hourly mentions on the BBC Radio 6 News.
That was followed by blanket media coverage the following day from the likes of the Evening Standard, Independent, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Record, BBC News Online, The Times, Mail Online, Daily Star, Daily Mirror, i, as well as the likes of Hello and Yahoo!, before going international It would be rude not to acknowledge Prince George himself, who chose the best timing ever to take his first tentative steps, giving online media some extra content to pad out their story.
The best news however is that the Prince George silver coin is selling fast, with sales already hitting two thirds of the total issue – all delivered solely by the coverage we and the in-house team delivered: no marketing or advertising spend.
If that doesn’t demonstrate the power of PR then we don’t know what does.
