Bringing a brand partnership to this historic leisure destination

We’ve been working with The City Baths for several years, since successfully launching the £7.5m restoration and reopening of this historic, Grade II-listed building. The next step for The City Baths was to widen their regional network and connect with  local partners, groups and influencers, to drive footfall to the fitness centre.

Our brief was to develop a centralised strategy to position people at the heart of all marketing activity for The City Baths, selling a lifestyle and positioning The City Baths as a facilitator for anyone seeking to improve their health and wellbeing goals.

To attract new audiences and cement The City Baths as a leading leisure destination and to maximise exposure for The City Baths in local and regional press, increasing awareness and reach across social media, drive footfall and capture attendee data. We embarked on an ambitious brand partnership strategy to hold an outstanding event at the venue.

206

tickets sold.

Coverage achieved in key target titles including

ChronicleLive, NE1, Portfolio North and Bdaily

4,661,356

OTS.

Increased The City Baths social media following by

300 followers within a 10-day period

87,504

impressions across Instagram and Facebook.

49,879

reach.

25,734

engagements.

946

link clicks.

Our Approach

We reached out to John Lewis Newcastle to develop a unique opportunity to offer the people of Tyneside a leisure-meets-retail, health, fitness and wellbeing-focused event. Designed the showcase the very best of The City Baths as a health and wellbeing destination, this was also an opportunity for John Lewis Newcastle to showcase their products and services.

Cool Blue wanted to offer The City Baths something much more than just a typical leisure offer. Something that would make them stand out from the crowd and appeal to a much wider audience group. We wanted to partner with a like-minded local business who could bring energy and help us promote The City Baths in an elevated way. There was no better partner and all-round iconic brand to stand shoulder to shoulder with.

We focused the event design on capturing the attention of those living, working or studying in Newcastle city centre, with the messaging we crafted in the run-up to the event emphasising the importance of health, fitness and wellbeing.

A unique class programme from Aquafit to Yoga, Kettlebells to HIIT workouts was developed in collaboration with the fitness instructors from The City Baths and John Lewis Newcastle demonstrated some of the very best skincare, makeup, fashion and hair styling products from well-known brands such as Elemis, Clarins, Liz Earle and Dyson hair.

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Delivery

As one of the most exciting events to have taken place in The City Baths since its reopening in 2020, we called in the support of Cool Blue’s inhouse creative team to develop a bright and eye-catching identity for the event collateral. We developed a whole host of assets required to promote the event across a number of online and offline channels, including:

Development of the two brand logos into a ‘lock-up’
Social Media assets (including short teaser videos)
Eventbrite branding
In-centre posters
Online ads

We also worked closely with John Lewis Newcastle to develop a series of creative assets which carried their branding for social media. The presence of their name within The City Baths channels helped to amplify the event messaging and reach new audiences.

The collaboration with John Lewis also gave us a ‘hook’ with media, and a chance for them to experience both brands differently, and in their entirety. These kinds of brand partnerships enable interesting conversations, new networks to be created and perceptions to be enhanced.

As well as drafting a press release which we distributed to key local media, such as The Chronicle Live, Portfolio North and Living North, we joined forces with business improvement district organisation NE1 to promote the event. We also used The City Baths database (of which there are 800 members and 6,000 prospective members) to communicate with and to send regular email correspondence about the event.

Eager to attract new audiences, we utilised a paid social media campaign to entice new customers to the event. We developed a dedicated strand of social media content, using aspirational imagery, including branded imagery from both The City Baths and John Lewis, to give a glimpse of what the event would offer. We accompanied this content with a series of short teaser videos, designed to encourage clicks and to drive people to The City Baths website to find out more.

Finally, we developed a range of promotional leaflets, event signage, event itinerary boards, free tote bags (with goodies from both John Lewis brands and The City Baths) as well as incentive vouchers for promotional offers and packages on the evening.

A further free gym/swim/class pass was offered to all attendees to encourage them to use The City Baths again in the future, and thereby encourage them to sign up as members.