Scotch Whisky Experience win Marketing Award
16th November 2009

Two Edinburgh attractions have won joint top prize for their marketing campaigns in the 2009 ASVA (Association of Scotland’s Visitor Attractions) awards. Recognising marketing excellence among ASVA member organisations, the awards were presented at ASVA’s ‘Driving Sustainable Growth’ conference at the Westerwood Hotel near Glasgow on 12th November. The Scotch Whisky Experience on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile won for its ‘Sensational Journey’ campaign, which was developed to create awareness of the 2009 re-development of the Centre. Facing the need to maximise exposure from a limited budget, the campaign focused on using radio, outdoor media and PR to raise mass awareness of the new attraction along with partnership marketing activities to increase reach and drive footfall. The campaign was successful in generating a 16% increase in visitors and an 18% increase in spend. Commenting on The Scotch Whisky Experience campaign, the judges said: “This was clearly a cleverly designed, multi-faceted campaign. The campaign featured good cross-promotions with partners to get the message across, in addition to low scale outdoor media, leafleting and promotional events. PR activity was well targeted and we would expect this to continue generating significant revenue into next year and beyond”. The Real Mary King’s Close, also on The Royal Mile, won for its ‘Real Streets…Real People…Real History’ campaign, which focused on marketing activity carried out following a re-branding of the attraction in 2008. The campaign, which aimed to grow off-peak shoulder month business and consolidate visitor numbers and revenue in the peak season, included printed marketing materials, online marketing, social, broadcast and outdoor media and PR activity. Speaking about the Real Mary King’s Close campaign, the judges said: “The pre-booking and VIP-booking services which the attraction introduced as part of this campaign are clever marketing and data capture techniques in their own right and the campaign plan demonstrated an excellent range and sensible mix of traditional and new media”. Entries for this award were open to individual attractions, or groups of attractions working together, which could demonstrate good use of marketing channels, disciplines and technology together with effective measurement of results. Presenting the awards, ASVA Chairman Andrew Johnson said: “The standard of entries was higher than ever this year, and demonstrates that successful visitor attractions are those than can use market intelligence to up their game and respond to the challenges presented by an increasingly competitive business environment. Encouraging improved marketing and promotion through awards such as this is just one of the ways ASVA supports visitor attractions throughout the country.”