The challenge

When Covid hit, travel stopped. The industry came grinding to a halt, with usual peak times seeing deserted holiday parks across the UK. Parkdean Resorts challenged us to keep interest in their resorts high, despite no-one being allowed to attend them.

Challenge accepted.

We created a year-long strategy, designed to help Parkdean lead the staycation market in time for national holidays to be back on the agenda. While their customers were trapped inside, we’d be positioning Parkdean on every touchpoint, putting them front of mind for the post-pandemic world.

Today’s lockdown was tomorrow’s opportunity.

The idea

We planned a summer of creative campaigns, each optimised to target Parkdean Resorts’ visibility, engagement, and authority in the UK travel market. From search and social, to brand and industry authority, each campaign targeted a specific keyword or section of the site and sought to improve Parkdean Resorts’ standing in an industry halted by Coronavirus.

Our campaigns included:

Virtual Landmarks

Creating the Virtual Staycations blog post to position Parkdean Resorts as industry authority even when travel was impossible, while creating staycation relevant content.  The post covered 12 landmarks you could visit from the comfort of your own sofa - perfect reading for customers and journalists alike.

Outdoor Pools

We created an outdoor pool landing page making it easier than ever to browse and book your holiday, with less irrelevant content, easier navigation and - most importantly - more pools.

Summer Melt

Vibrant, visual and fun. The Summer Melt Challenge showcased video content to find out which ice lollies can stand up to summer heat whilst keeping summer holidays alive in the home and on staycations.

The Staycation Market Report

To increase industry authority we created the Staycation Market Report, looking in depth at COVID-19 staycation facts and figures, pushing Parkdean Resorts forward as thought leaders in the travel market.

The Cornish Pasty Tour

A data and content-led campaign, we created a hub of knowledge about the humble Cornish Pasty alongside a map of the best places to try them.

Sandtone

The Sandtone campaign creatively combined Britain’s best beaches with Pantone swatches and unique textures to help the UK find their perfect shade of summer.

The results

Our KPI for the year was 250 links. We exceeded that within six months.

The umbrella campaign achieved 350 media placements across the world, with 258 of them linking back to Parkdean’s site. We were covered in the Daily Mail, CNN, Forbes, The Drum and The Sun, generating 64,300 referral visits.

The campaigns within the strategy achieved 15,700 social shares, and 15,200 uses of our two bespoke filters.

After only eight months of working with us, and despite a global pandemic meaning their product was unavailable, Parkdean had overtaken their main rivals and seen an 11% increase in market share. This drove a £7 million increase in organic SEO revenue.

When people were allowed to go on holiday again, Parkdean’s sites were all sold out.

We won Global Content Awards, UK Content Awards, PR Moment Awards, Drum Awards, EU Content Awards and Northern Digital Awards. For over a year, there wasn’t an awards ceremony you could go to without Parkdean taking home a prize.