Promoting

“When I first started working on George Street ten years ago there was no activity here during August at all. The increased festival activity has brought a new clientele to George Street, coming for a show and also visiting the shops or meeting friends for a bite to eat or a drink and I think that has benefitted everyone.”

Peter Heggie, The East India Company

PROMOTING the BID area 2018-23 spend £2.35m

A thriving city centre is a place people want to visit. Our area boasts some of Britain’s biggest brands, outstanding office space and an unmatched boutique retail and hospitality offering; perfect partners for a programme of carefully co-ordinated promotional activity which will include a BID-centred £1million marketing campaign to complement an ongoing programme of cultural, festive and seasonal events.

Our city centre is changing with new developments like Edinburgh St James and The Registers creating unique new opportunities. We will work hard to ensure that the benefit and attraction of these new locations is felt by businesses from East to West through improved wayfinding, attractive events and a flagship marketing campaign.

Success is a complex equation, and it’s never been more important to continue our commitment into the next 5 years.

MARKETING CAMPAIGN IN ACTION

Major marketing campaigns “This is Edinburgh,” our two year joint marketing campaign last term drove a 2.86% footfall increase in the BID and delivered over £50 million of economic benefit.

We’re raising our game. And our investment.

Building on the success of our “This is Edinburgh” campaign, we will double our investment committing over £1m to a marketing campaign that’s entirely designed to benefit our area, with dedicated PR support raising the profile of our businesses and firmly establishing the BID as Edinburgh’s city centre.

We’re not resting on our laurels; an agency has been appointed following a thorough process with shortlisted candidates presenting to our Board. All aspects of the campaign have already been rigorously tested with residents, our businesses and the Essential Edinburgh Board. This creative will be refined and, subject to a successful renewal vote, the marketing campaign will commence in Autumn 2018.

Edinburgh Farmers’ Market We’re proud of the Edinburgh Farmers’ Market and pleased to continue our commitment in the next term. This Saturday staple is not only a major footfall generator, it’s completely self sustaining. With careful management and enduring popularity, the market not only fully funds itself each year, but actually adds to your levy investment from its profits, allowing Essential Edinburgh to do even more for our businesses.

Over five years, 4.94 million visitors to the city have been drawn in by the market on Castle Terrace. Though just outside our boundary, over 50% of these visitors go on to spend money in our area, giving this important footfall driver an economic benefit of over £19m.

Film Fest in the City Our partnership with Edinburgh International Film Festival will continue next term, transforming St Andrew Square Garden into a free entry outdoor cinema. Attracting around 20,000 summer moviegoers into our area over three days, this popular annual outing creates an economic benefit of £1.7m each term and creates free advertising opportunities for BID businesses to reach over 500,000 passers by over the weekend. Partnership events and festival activity Street of Light, Georgian Shadows, 101 Objects, Red Red Rose Street and the visually stunning Bloom… we’ve worked with key partners to deliver exceptional events that bring people in and generate spend for our levy paying businesses. We pledge to continue this successful approach which has delivered massive footfall into our area.

Festivals With an economic impact of £280m in 2015 alone, Edinburgh’s famous festivals are a vital component of the city economy. We’ve worked to bring the benefit of these festivals right into the heart of the BID. Through our advocacy and investment we’ve created opportunities that simply wouldn’t exist without us and, as a result, we’re now the epicentre of Edinburgh’s Christmas and a hub of activity throughout the summer festivals.

Communications A dedicated communications team is a core component of delivering benefit for our businesses. Even the best ideas can’t thrive if nobody knows about them and our committed in-house team work hard to keep customers, partners and levy-payers regularly updated whether online, in print or in person.

“I’ve been in post for over four years now, I don’t remember a time when Essential Edinburgh wasn’t part of the city centre and wasn’t part of my day to day communication. They are very visible and are excellent at telling me about what might happen, will happen and won’t happen. Knowing these three things mean I can plan and capitalise on their initiatives.”

Louise Maclean, Element and Badger & Co