Harrogate Spring Water - Mindful Drinking

Bringing a taste of Royal Ascot to North Yorkshire

Our strategic focus with Harrogate Spring Water is to cement this leading water brand’s position in the local community, emphasising the roots of the business in the North Yorkshire town, Harrogate’s spa town heritage, and the brand’s commitment to the area.

Harrogate Spring Water is also the long-standing official water partner of Royal Ascot, during which racegoers are encouraged to stay hydrated and drink mindfully.

To mark Royal Ascot 2023, Harrogate Spring Water commissioned original research into the drinking habits of British adults, which found that 57% of us are choosing to drink more mindfully.

To emphasise this rise in mindful drinking, Harrogate Spring Water collaborated with celebrity mixologist and bartender Merlin Griffiths to create the new non-alcoholic cocktail to celebrate Royal Ascot. A zesty, summery mocktail with hints of ginger and raspberry, The Royal Raspberry Spritz debuted at this summer’s Royal Ascot, and was also made available to the people of Harrogate through brand partnerships with local restaurants Mama Doreen’s and The Pickled Sprout.

Our brief was to develop a highly localised strategy to raise awareness of mindful drinking, encouraging local people to taste the Royal Raspberry Spritz for themselves at one of the chosen Harrogate venues, and thereby bringing the celebratory, summer feel of Royal Ascot to the heart of Harrogate.

Views of the Mindful Drinking Hub increased by nearly

620%

compared to the pre-campaign period.

Page users on the Mindful Drinking Hub increased by over

180%

Social media content posted on the Your Harrogate channels received nearly

10,000

engagements.

Harrogate Mama’s content reached

5,726

accounts across Instagram and Facebook, and received over

7,000

impressions and engagements.

Our Approach

In the weeks ahead of Royal Ascot, we embarked on an ambitious local media campaign to get the mindful drinking message out to the North Yorkshire community.

Based on our existing relationship with local radio station Your Harrogate, we knew that radio was one of the most effective formats to get a brand message out to this unique North Yorkshire market. Having worked with Your Harrogate on previous media launches for Harrogate Spring Water, we were able to plan a live broadcast at Mama Doreen’s.

The advantage of this live broadcast was that we could capture the buzz and excitement of a restaurant environment, booking interviews with Harrogate Spring Water and Mama Doreen’s representatives ahead of time to ensure a full radio day experience.

In collaboration with Harrogate Spring Water and parent company Danone, we also drafted a press release for local media, detailing the results of the mindful drinking survey and publicising the Royal Raspberry Spritz, with information on how local people can taste the mocktail for themselves.

Harrogate Spring Water negotiated a competition with Mama Doreen’s, whereby local people had the opportunity to win an afternoon tea for four people and four tickets to an Ascot race day. This meant that we could include reference to this competition in the press release, giving readers a clear call to action to take part in the mindful drinking campaign for themselves.

Delivery

As well as planning the Your Harrogate live radio day and developing a press release for local media, we partnered with the major regional lifestyle title Living North to launch a reader competition, offering the winner tickets to Royal Ascot plus a luxury hotel stay.

When drafting the copy for this competition, we emphasised the mindful drinking message, with clear references to Harrogate Spring Water’s survey results to demonstrate how
this is fast becoming a national trend.

This competition helped us reach a wider audience beyond Harrogate, with Living North’s readership spanning the whole of the North of England.

In addition, we identified local influencer Lucy Playford, known as Harrogate Mama, as an ideal fit for this campaign. A busy mum who writes extensively about Harrogate’s best places to eat, drink and visit, Lucy was enthusiastic about partnering with Harrogate Spring Water.

As well as developing her own unique video and photo content based on the campaign messaging, which went out on Lucy’s Instagram and Facebook channels, and which we ensured the client had full approval on before go-live, we invited Lucy to take part in the Your Harrogate live broadcast.

The radio day went swimmingly, with Lucy joining members of the public in a live tasting of the Royal Raspberry Spritz – and all giving an overwhelmingly positive reaction! We also briefed and set up both live and pre-recorded interviews with staff members from Mama Doreen’s and The Pickled Sprout, which gave them the opportunity to talk about their excitement to partner with Harrogate Spring Water, and how mindful drinking trends are reflected amongst their own customer bases.

To help measure the success of the campaign and drive traffic to the brand site, we included a link to Harrogate Spring Water’s Mindful Drinking Hub in every piece of content and media engagement.