Yorkshire Day, celebrated annually on 1 August, is a chance to celebrate the county’s distinctive character, people, culture and proud heritage. The date has strong historical roots, from the white rose’s association with the Wars of the Roses to the story of Yorkshire soldiers wearing white roses in remembrance of fallen comrades at the 1759 Battle of Minden. Officially established in 1975, Yorkshire Day also falls on the anniversary of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, championed by Yorkshire MP William Wilberforce.
This year, the occasion provided the perfect opportunity to put that local pride firmly in the spotlight – and our team were tasked to create three very different activations for White Rose Shopping Centre, Trinity Leeds and Xscape Yorkshire.
From a bid to put the white rose on keyboards around the world, to a supersized tribute to a Yorkshire sporting hero, and a legendary rugby league voice taking over a lift, each campaign demonstrated just how powerful creative, locally-relevant PR can be.
Here’s how we brought Yorkshire Day to life across all three retail and leisure destinations:
Xscape Yorkshire Immortalises Legendary Voice to its Lift
At Xscape Yorkshire, we created a Yorkshire Day activation packed with humour, personality and local character – giving the centre’s lift a very Yorkshire voice.
We worked with legendary rugby league commentator and former Castleford Tigers player Mick Morgan to rerecord iconic phrases from his famous 1994 Cup Final commentary, including “I can’t spake”, “They don’t like it” and “Come on Cas, rub it in”, transforming an everyday lift journey into a celebration of Yorkshire and rugby league heritage.
To support the launch, we arranged a dedicated photoshoot with Mick, creating imagery and video content for use across PR and social channels. Media were also invited to a dedicated press event ahead of Yorkshire Day, with ITV Calendar, Wakefield Express and Castleford Tigers in attendance. The campaign secured 47 pieces of coverage in total with a reach of 11.4 million.
To further amplify awareness of the campaign to Yorkshire-focussed audiences and Castleford fans, we partnered with @bewilderedyorkshire, @the.tight.englishman and @luke.roerl, generating more than 1.2 million views, with @bewilderedyorkshire’s Instagram post surpassing 600,000 views alone.
On Yorkshire Day itself, 50 limited-edition “I can’t spake” scarves were also given away, giving visitors a memorable keepsake and another reason to experience the activation first-hand.
Whilst the new lift announcements launched on Yorkshire Day, they be a permanent fixture at Xscape Yorkshire – designed to bring a smile to visitors’ faces on every ride.
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Trinity Leeds Puts Sporting Hero in the Spotlight
For Trinity Leeds, we saw Yorkshire Day as an opportunity to celebrate one of the county’s most inspirational sporting figures while supporting a cause close to the hearts of people across the region.
We developed a concept of a super-sized tribute to former Leeds Rhinos star Sir Kevin Sinfield, unveiled beneath the centre’s main atrium as he prepared for his latest fundraising challenge in honour of his close friend and former teammate Rob Burrow, who passed away from MND in 2024.
Visitors were invited to show their support by leaving messages of encouragement on rugby shirt-themed cards, creating a ‘wall of support’ for his final major fundraising challenge.
Bringing together Yorkshire pride, sporting heritage and the fight against Motor Neurone Disease, the activation also gave the MND Association an opportunity to engage directly with the public. The charity raised hundreds of pounds in donations on the day and had meaningful conversations with people whose loved ones had been diagnosed with MND.
Sir Kev – who recently received a knighthood – also recorded a video message of support, which was shared across Trinity Leeds’ social channels, adding a personal touch to the campaign.
Media interest was equally strong. The campaign generated 29 pieces of coverage with a reach of 7.5 million, including five features on ITV Calendar and a particularly positive feature from Leeds TV.
White Rose Takes Yorkshire Pride to Keyboards Worldwide
For White Rose Shopping Centre, we created a Yorkshire Day campaign to celebrate a true icon of the region across the world: the white rose itself.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed that the red rose emoji, famously used to represent our friends over the Pennines, has been available as an option for years, while there’s no Yorkshire equivalent to be found. So, we developed the idea of bringing the county’s most recognisable symbol to keyboards around the world by submitting a proposal to the Unicode Consortium for a new white rose emoji.
The Unicode Consortium, the non-profit organisation that controls the global standard for character encoding in operating systems around the world, accepts submissions once a year and requests that proposals show a legitimate worldwide need for the addition.
After extensive research, our submission detailed the white rose’s relevance not only to Yorkshire, but in various contexts all around the world including Korean K-pop culture, wedding traditions, funerals, mythology, religion, history, geography, and depictions in media.
The bid was announced on Yorkshire Day in a press release supported by nationwide YouGov research, which found that 58% of people would use a white rose emoji if one were available, giving the story both strong regional relevance as well as wider appeal.
The result was 21 pieces of coverage and a reach of 6.7 million, including a front-page story in the Yorkshire Evening Post, alongside coverage from Prolific North and Welcome to Yorkshire. The Yorkshire Day celebrations didn’t end there, as an additional release highlighting the centre’s on-site activities secured an additional 12 pieces of coverage across key regional titles.
The Unicode Consortium will respond to proposals by December 2026, so watch this space.
While each campaign took a different approach, they were all rooted in the same principle: find an authentic connection to the destination and turn it into an idea people want to talk about.
Together, the campaigns generated 109 pieces of coverage and more than 26 million in reach, proving the power of distinctive, locally relevant PR that resonates with its audience.
Three destinations. Three very different ideas. One team bringing them to life – and making Yorkshire Day impossible to ignore.
