Hobbledown - PR & Influencer case study

Engaging consumer audiences to drive footfall and awareness during key seasonal moments

Hobbledown is an adventure park in Hounslow and Epsom, aimed at children and families who want a fun and exciting day out. Featuring adventure play villages, farm and zoo animals and an indoor play barn, visitors can look forward to everything from jumping pillows and slides, to tunnels and towers, and ponies and parrots!

We were briefed to manage and execute an integrated press office and influencer engagement campaign to increase visibility for Hobbledown by boosting brand awareness and building brand love during peak seasons – ultimately inspiring more consumers to visit.

Activity commenced in June, so to ensure we were able to capitalise on the summer holidays, our first step was to implement a targeted programme of ‘always on’ media engagement focused on showcasing Hobbledown as a ‘must visit’ destination for families.

To boost brand visibility, our Digital PR strategy focused on placing media coverage in online titles, with brand mentions and follow-links to Hobbledown’s website negotiated with journalists to help ensure Hobbledown appeared in relevant searches and increase the brand’s share of voice.

To help Hobbledown rank highly on Google, we also focused on securing coverage in online titles with a high domain authority of 40+.

Targeting journalists who write across the national, parenting, consumer and London and Surrey regional media, we placed online review coverage which educated audiences on what Hobbledown has to offer and ‘best of’ style-round ups around things to do and places to visit during the school holidays.

We knew we’d need to be creative to build awareness beyond standard media reviews and ‘what to do’ roundups, so we also pitched reactive news stories to put Hobbledown at the heart of cultural conversation.

Reaching new audiences

We worked with Hobbledown to capture videos of their parrots engaging in a unique activity – predicting the winner of each upcoming match in the Women’s Football World Cup. After each video was published on Hobbledown’s Instagram, we pitched it to the media to secure coverage in national and consumer titles.

This hardworking press office function continued into the autumn and winter, with creative storytelling angles creating new ways for journalists to publish articles throughout the year.

Beyond print and online media, we knew we’d also need to reach the highly engaged parenting and family communities on social, so we activated an influencer programme to generate a wealth of social media coverage and ensure that conversation and hype also translated across channels, and seasons.

This involved us proactively reaching out to relevant parenting influencers based in London and the surrounding areas to offer them complimentary family tickets, in exchange for content about their experience published on their Instagram/TikTok channels.

Ahead of Hobbledown’s seasonal Halloween and Christmas events, we also invited a number of influencers and their families to preview what was on offer, to generate social media content that would heighten consumer excitement and ultimately help to drive ticket sales.

To ensure that content captured the full magic of the events, we created and shared thorough briefing documents containing key messaging, as well as attending the events to act as an on-site point of contact for influencers and ensure they had a positive experience.

Our integrated campaign was a smash hit: in six months, we delivered 76 pieces of earned media and influencer coverage, reaching an audience of over 40 million.