Wednesday 2 May 2018

Sixty Years of Austin Healey Sprite and MG Midget















It's the 60th Birthday of one of Britain's favourite sports cars - the Austin Healey Sprite and MG Midget. The Midget & Sprite Club has organised a celebration of this milestone at Wroxhall Abbey Hotel on Sunday 26th August 2018. This prestigious venue isn't far from where the first Frogeye Sprite prototype rolled off the production line in Warwick.

The Midget & Sprite Club approached Harlequin Media Consultancy to create and distribute PR about the event to Classic Car Magazines and local newspapers in the areas that manufactured the marque - Warwick, Abingdon and Longbridge.

Promotion for the event is now well underway, so let's hope that this great British sports car gets the birthday it deserves. The general PR release is detailed below with links to the Club's website.


SIXTY YEARS OF AUSTIN HEALEY SPRITE AND MG MIDGET

Sunday 26th August 2018, Wroxall Abbey Hotel CV35 7NB

















In 1956 BMC boss Leonard Lord tasked Donald Healey with developing “a sports car that a chap could keep in his shed.”

The result was the Mark I Austin Healey “Frogeye” Sprite which was unveiled to the motoring press at Monte Carlo in May 1958. The cheeky look of the simple little sports car was an instant hit. Over a period of 21 years of production there were fourteen different versions with production ending on 7th December 1979, the last vehicle being a Black 1500 Midget.

To mark 60 years of “Spridgets” the single marque Midget and Sprite Club is organising a great gathering of Sprites and Midgets at Wroxall Abbey, not far from Healey’s Cape Works in Warwick, on August Bank Holiday Sunday 26th August 2018. Significant and historical Sprites and Midgets will be on Show, as well as a ‘Pride of Ownership’ competition. Trade stands and food stalls will be on site and all owners of Sprites, Midgets and derivatives are welcome. Entry is £10 per car to include a commemorative Rally Plaque and Goody Bag.

Booking details are on the Midget and Sprite Club website at http://www.midgetandspriteclub.com/sprite-60th/

For more information about this event or the Midget and Sprite Club,
please contact Stuart Watson stuart@thewatsonz.com

Main picture courtesy of Classic and Sports Car Magazine


Thursday 5 April 2018

BMB Structural Steel gets the works online!



















BMB Structural Steelwork already had a great-looking website that was well-positioned on Google searches and had good click through stats for many keywords applied to the business.

However, the site wasn't generating the level of enquiries expected for such an investment, so Harlequin was asked to audit the website and look at ways of improving it.

It didn't take long to realise that the main home page graphic, whilst being a dramatic and eye-catching picture of one of the workers using an arc welder, took up most of the screen. This pushed all the relevant information about BMB's services out of shot and didn't really show what they manufactured.

Harlequin worked with the web developers to improve the home page with 3 sliding graphics that illustrated BMB's core business, with 3 further graphics below that linked to the separate services - Structural Steelwork, Architectural Steelwork and House Building Steelwork. We then went onto re-write and design many of the information pages and completely overhaul the gallery and blog sections.

Whilst the web developers worked on the website changes, we set about creating a social media presence for BMB. Facebook and Linked In company pages were created, along with Twitter and Instagram accounts. We then started populating these social media channels with pictures and content from the wide variety of projects BMB had completed in recent years.

With the website completed and a manageable cross-section of social media for BMB's staff to handle, we gave the staff an insight of how to be pro-active with their social media and use it to prospect for work, rather than hope that the channels would trawl it in for them.

The project has been a great success, with more enquiries coming from the website and even more coming from the Sales Team having better tools to prospect with.





Tuesday 6 March 2018

Harlequin at the Stourbridge Rugby May Weekend















Every year, Stourbridge Rugby hosts its May Weekend, the biggest series of events it stages outside of the National 2 North and Midlands 1 West rugby fixtures. The May Weekend has built up a prestigious reputation over recent years.

The weekend consists of three different events - on Friday the Corporate Lunch, Saturday the May Ball and a Charity Event on Sunday.

The 2017 events were the biggest to date, with the Corporate Lunch hosting over 1500 guests who were treated to a fantastic afternoon. England Head Coach, Eddie Jones and former Head of the CBI, Lord Digby Jones were the main speakers, with a special appearance by Glen Ella. Phillip Serrell performed the auction and John Bentley was MC.

The May Ball continued the celebrations and on Sunday, the Club hosted a Charity match between current and past Stourbridge stars.

Harlequin Media was involved with the promotion of the whole weekend with traditional and digital marketing, as well as producing a range of items to use on the day - posters, tickets, e-tickets, website stories, Facebook events, lunch programmes and menus, table plans and lists, Stourbridge Rugby sponsorship opportunities leaflets, bar signage, sponsors logos formatted for the big screens, competition envelopes, waiters' order pads, and so on...

Harlequin also came up with the idea of the May Lunch Twitter competition. Guests are invited to follow the @StourbridgeRFC Twitter account, then post a tweet mentioning @StourbridgeRFC #SRFCMayLunch and their table number. Sometime during the afternoon, all of the mentions are scrolled and one of the guest speakers chooses a tweet. The winning table is presented with a Magnum of Champagne. This simple idea increases the followers for the Twitter account and helps the hashtag to trend for the afternoon.

Harlequin worked with the Club to ensure that all of the events were promoted as extensively as possible and making sure that everything required to make the day run smoothly turned up in good time - we even helped on the day!

The countdown to this year's May Weekend has already begun - so SAVE THE DATES!!!

Friday 4th May - Corporate Lunch
Saturday 5th May - The Royal Ball
Sunday 6th May - Community Charity Rugby Event

If you would like help promoting your products and events on a variety of media, or just need some design and print done, contact us on communicate@harlequinmediaconsultancy.com