Flow PR’s Caroline Smith loves it when a plan comes together – like the publicity for the first-ever Cape Town Summer Market.
Flow Communications and Flow PR were contracted to do the public relations, design, social media and communications for the market, which is situated in the beautiful surroundings of the Company’s Garden. It kicked off on 14 December, and closed on 24 December 2012.
The market saw tens of thousands of patrons. According to Toby Chance, MD of organisers Adele Lucas Promotions, while it is difficult to accurately quantify numbers, there were “15–20 000 people through the market over the long weekend of 16 December, with Sunday being our biggest day”.
When it came to publicising the market before it opened, Flow PR had its work cut out for it, and so Caroline pulled out all the stops. She had the support of Flow Communications chief strategist Kevin Collins and journalist Stuart Buchanan, and they managed to create quite a buzz around the market.
“We did a lot [of publicity] – four or five press releases, a dedicated Twitter feed and a very active Facebook page. We also had radio interviews on Voice of the Cape, Bush Radio, Cape Community Radio and Cape Talk, as well as live crossings from Heart FM on the day we opened,” she says.
They also shot a pre-event video (watch the video below), in which Kevin – pitched as the man who is not English actor Stephen Fry, who bears something of a resemblance to him – takes viewers on a stroll around the Company’s Garden and paints a verbal picture of what the market will look like.
On 14 December Caroline travelled to Cape Town for the market’s grand opening, which was attended by fellow dignitaries such as Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille and other City of Cape Town worthies, and of course the media.
There was certainly more work than play at the market for Caroline and her colleagues, who ended up getting quite a bit of exercise by walking to and fro between the market and Flow’s Cape Town offices, to upload photographs of the market onto the Facebook page and Twitter account Twitter account.
Caroline couldn’t resist getting in a bit of shopping at the market as well, however. While she found it difficult to single out favourites among all the colourful and diverse goodies on sale, she did manage to buy “a fabulous hat and a pair of trousers”, she says with a laugh.
Caroline’s highlight of the market so far, though, has been achieving her publicity goals: “Getting page 3 coverage in the Cape Argus and a radio interview were definitely the highlight of it all. I always say, you know you’re doing it right when they call you for an interview,” she says, smiling.