Culture

Hilton campaign goes live!

Back in February, we reported about this year's live client project. If you remember, we ran a live brief  for Lincoln's newest hotel – the DoubleTree by Hilton – and the challenge was to advertise their Electric Bar & Restaurant.

The successful concept was produced by creative team Sam Barber & Maria Sousa Machado and they worked with Gyles, Mike and photographer Clive Doyle to produce the final campaign.

The billboard has now been put up on the ClearChannel site on Broadgate in Lincoln and very impressive it looks too!

The billboard on Broadgate, Lincoln

The 48 sheet billboard artwork

Sam & Maria proudly posing in from of their first billboard!

As well as the billboard the ad is featured in three of Lincoln's high quality magazines: The Bailgate Independent; Lincolnshire Life; and The Journal. The magazines will feature two different full-page adverts over the next two months.

 Press ad number one

Press ad number two.

The photos were taken by the very talented Newark-based photographer Clive Doyle. We art directed a full day's shoot from the roof of the hotel where it was pretty windy but with a fantastic view!

 *sings* ‘Up on the roooooooof...!’

 Clive at work

 Even the swans wanted to get in on the action

 The sunset looked incredible from up there.

Sales and Marketing Manager Nicola Shepheard, who lead the project for the hotel said, ‘One of The Electric Bar & Restaurant’s unique selling points is the fantastic views of the city and Sam and Maria's submission really reflected this in an innovative and eye-catching way.’

Maria said the duo brainstormed lots of ideas before settling on the winning entry: “We started off thinking about what makes the bar stand out and of different ways of looking at things through a lens. This translated quite literally in the end to using the tilt-shift photography style.

“Nicola from the DoubleTree by Hilton was really passionate about the project and treated us like professionals throughout the whole process,” she added.

For Sam, seeing their ideas come to life was one of the most rewarding aspects of the project: “A lot of the work we have done is simply generating ideas, but actually seeing our idea come to life and turned into a printed ad campaign has given us invaluable experience.”

Also on the judging panel was Principal Lecturer Gyles Lingwood, Senior Lecturer Mike Belton, Restaurant Manager Dan Ralley and Bar Manager Andy Hallam. As well as having their idea adopted by The Electric Bar & Restaurant as their official advert, Maria and Sam have each won an overnight stay at the DoubleTree by Hilton Lincoln and dinner in The Electric Bar & Restaurant for two people.

This very ambitious and successful project has given Sam and Maria the opportunity to work with a high-profile, well regarded brand and work alongside a top professional photographer. The ads that they have produced are beautiful, intelligent and will help the new Electric Bar & Restaurant achieve its strategic objectives.

Projects such as this give students the incredibly valuable experience of progressing their concepts through to final production and enable the university to work with local businesses and transfer knowledge and experience from the academic team. Local businesses benefit from utilising the very impressive creative skills of the students before they join the University of Lincoln creative advertising alumni who are working at some of the best advertising agencies in the world.