PR Diary – Prickly Icons, Busk Stops and Birthday Celebrations

A cracking month for cooking brands  

We’ve seen a wealth of coverage for cooking appliance brands Belling and Stoves this month: new product pieces in Good Homes and Homes & Interiors Scotland, reviews in the Evening Standard and Trusted Reviews, and more coverage for the warming recipes from our Energy-Saving Recipe Book in Stylist, Your Home, Home Style, and the Daily Express.

The beauty of evergreen campaign content!

Injecting colour and community into Southside’s refresh🎨🖌️ 

As part of Southside Shopping Centre’s exciting refresh, we worked with the team to transform the brickwork at the centre’s busy West Entrance into a colourful and welcoming space.

Following an open call out for a local artist, Wandsworth resident, Ruki Chuki, was selected to create the mural that celebrated diversity and vibrancy of the community. With bright, dynamic colours, the mural portrays the rich blend of cultures, backgrounds, and personalities that make up Wandsworth, highlighting how love and connection transcend all differences.

We supported the campaign every step, from promoting the artist call out to announcing the winning artist, as well as showcasing the official unveiling event with the Mayor of Wandsworth in the local media.

A timelapse video featuring the mural’s creation was also captured, alongside imagery of the unveiling event, ensuring the mural received widespread media attention.

 

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Saying goodbye to a prickly icon at Xscape Yorkshire🌵

For Castleford locals, the ‘Cas Vegas’ cactus lift at Xscape Yorkshire is a legend, having served hundreds of thousands of visitors and holding landmark status in the region. This month, we had the task of announcing that the 21-year-old cactus-shaped lift will be removed as part of centre improvements.

Our press release on the 12-metre icon’s removal sparked significant media coverage across online, social, print, and broadcast channels, reaching over 5.2 million people. Fans and admirers even set up online petitions to #KeepTheCactus! BBC Radio Leeds heavily featured the cactus lift in a wider breakfast show broadcast we arranged as part of its Road Trip Staycation Around Yorkshire series, live from Xscape Yorkshire.

Presenter Rima Ahmed spoke with staff and guests about the farewell – and a Reel was also published on BBC Radio Leeds’ Instagram, reaching ¼ m views, paying tribute to the lift and inviting people to share their cherished memories.

 

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TikTok star launches Xscape Yorkshire’s ‘Busk Stop’🎤 

We were back at Xscape Yorkshire during the October half-term holidays as the centre has introduced a brand new Busk Stop, giving buskers a dedicated spot to perform inside the centre for the first time.

To mark the launch, we partnered with Yorkshire buskers and TikTok star Liv Harland, who drew a crowd of visitors during her performance on the day. Following Liv’s performance, the Busk Stop was open to local and aspiring artists to perform throughout the half-term and beyond.

The campaign received widespread local coverage both pre-and post-launch, including Wakefield Express, Yorkshire Evening Post and Welcome to Yorkshire. Liv Harland also shared snippets of her performance at Xscape on her Instagram channel, amplifying the event’s reach to her 1.1m followers.

On the right track for rail seat launch 

Spinks, the spring and components division of Leeds bedmaker Harrison Spinks, launched its new 100% recyclable EcoSeatTM – the most comfortable rail seat system ever tested – at a special event at The University of Huddersfield.

Industry experts had a chance to test out the new seating, which has been made with unique recyclable spring systems that are used within Harrison Spinks’ luxury mattresses, in a real-life simulator that creates a realistic passenger experience. We drafted a press release about the new launch and organised photography on the day, as well as inviting select media, to result in trade and local coverage for the brand.

It’s a dog’s life for Dudley 

Allow us to introduce Dudley, Clarks Village’s new CEO – Canine Executive Officer that is. 

The gorgeous three-legged Dudley was snapped by our pup-arazzi during a visit to Pawsome Pooch, the shopping outlet’s dog-friendly weekend. Sailing through to a shortlist of the event’s top dogs, Dudley won a public vote on Clarks Village’s social channels to be crowned the competition winner.  

In October, Dudley officially started his new CEO role and has been out and about making sure Clarks Village is as dog friendly as ever. He’s been meeting the team, inspecting the outlet’s water bowls, sniffing out doggy treats and giving a very warm welcome to fellow furry guests. He even had time for a spot of shopping!

Warming hearts on social media for White Rose  

As part of our enhanced influencer programme for our client Landsec, we’ve been managing a variety of influencer partnerships to showcase its portfolio of iconic shopping centres and outlets. 

One of our recent highlights was a collaboration for the White Rose shopping centre in Leeds with content creator Jess, known for her heart-warming videos with her Nan, Norma, whose witty personality has captured the hearts of thousands on social media. Our goal for this campaign was to position White Rose as an ideal shopping and day-out destination, while also entertaining and engaging audiences through Jess & Norma’s unique charm. 

We managed every aspect of the campaign, from outreach and concept generation, to contract negotiation and briefing. We also coordinated Jess and her boyfriend Jake’s visit to the centre, where they filmed entertaining and engaging content as they shopped for gifts for Norma, bringing our vision to life. 

The published video has received over 793K views and 22.1K engagements across Instagram and Facebook. Due to popular demand, they published an organic follow up video of Jess and Norma unwrapping the gifts purchased during the White Rose shopping trip shortly afterwards, amassing 846K views and 27.8K engagements.

 

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Yasper celebrates 1st birthday 

We helped our friends and colleagues at Yasper celebrate their 1st anniversary at the end of last month. Some of the ‘helping’ involved cake consumption which is right up our street.

Congratulations to Jules and Bethany on a hugely successful first year and here’s to more collabs between Umpf and Yasper.

Whoop! WasteLess Wonderland win for Westgate 

In November last year we launched WasteLess Wonderland, the UK’s first alternative Christmas market, which repurposed surplus materials to create a unique eco-friendly festive experience.

As well as last year’s launch, the  Umpf team wrote the industry award entry and, in October, it won Christmas Campaign of the Year at the retail industry’s Sceptre Awards.

Well done to the Westgate Oxford team and our friends at Hemingway Design who created and delivered the experience. Read more about it here.

And finally… Lighting up Leeds 

Light Night Leeds is a key calendar date for any locals, and sees the city centre lit up with dazzling light displays, performances and installations. The two-day event saw the popular Spark! drummers return to Trinity Leeds – and crowds packed out the shopping centre to see them.

We organised photography to capture the performances, with some amazing results. The drummers were even featured as the Guardian’s Photo of the Day!