Entertainment: Cover-up boosts Shakespeare attractions

Campaign: The Great Shakespeare Cover-up
Client: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
PR team: Willoughby PR
Timescale: October 2011
Budget: £2,500

 

OBJECTIVES 

• To use the launch of Anonymous to engage with people who have shown an interest in Shakespeare

•  To bring Shakespeare and the trust to the fore of popular culture, encouraging debate.

STRATGEY AND PLAN

The team visualised a world without Shakespeare. This included getting 45 pubs in the UK named after the Bard to cover up their signs 'in protest', while road signs mentioning him were also covered.

Ahead of the film's premiere, the stunt was sold in to national broadcast journalists, who were invited to visit a Shakespearean expert at the trust on launch day, when the world-famous Gower Memorial statue in Stratford was covered with a white sheet.

MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION

Coverage included a live broadcast by BBC Breakfast, as well as CNN and Russia NTV. The story featured 224 times during five days across UK regional and national print, radio, TV and online.

RESULTS

In 2011, visitor numbers to birthplace properties rose by 41,477 compared with 2010.

This article was first published on prweek.com