The Lowry

Media Launch and Culture PR – The Lowry

The Lowry in Salford was a government flagship millennium arts project, which opened to the public in April 2000. From its inception, we have worked closely with the Lowry’s in-house marketing and PR team to generate positive media coverage.

SKV launched the box office in 1999, and in 2004/2005 we were retained for a 12-month period to give strategic input into all of The Lowry’s communications – performing & visual arts, community & education and corporate relations. Since then, we have been appointed to undertake regular specialist project work in relation to changing the perception of The Lowry.

Objective: As a majority of The Lowry’s programme is derived from its role as a major receiving venue, and the fact its permanent exhibitions are devoted to LS Lowry, we were tasked with exploiting temporary exhibitions, the area where the venue could demonstrate individual creativity in terms of its creative offering and where it could try and reach new audiences.

Exhibitions PR Campaign 2004 – 2005: The agency was appointed to handle all media relations on a series of temporary exhibitions which were key to the re-positioning of The Lowry. To do this we looked to get The Lowry’s name into not only traditional arts media and ‘what’s on’ sections but further to reach new audiences through agenda-setting media.

Campaign: Thermo  – a contemporary exhibition of ‘undiscovered’ modern artists from across the UK.

The campaign was targeted at younger, more cutting edge national and local media. Interesting artists were also cherry picked to be ‘hero’ stories, whilst local angles (i.e. where the artist came from) were also exploited.

Lamorna Birch - The antithesis of Thermo with an older market targeted. Regionally Birch’s Lancashire roots were exploited with the Lancashire press and we positioned him as Lancashire’s ‘forgotten’ master painter. Further we used Birch’s idyllic seascapes as a hook to approach maritime press to tie in with 2005 being ‘Year Of The Sea.’

Rock by Jane Bown - A collection of legendary rock star portraits by the Observer’s long serving celebrity photographer. With Jane Bown being associated so closely with The Observer, strategically we decided to target national music and photography press, together with local media.

Nightfall - the diverse nature of Nightfall, not being strictly ‘wildlife’ or ‘environmental’, nor being ‘photography’ or ‘sculpture’ etc. meant there were no clear cut angles to present to national media. However, the artist’s engaging personality did give us collateral to exploit, especially with regard to local media.

Results: Campaign highlights include:

Thermo:

• Full page in contemporary national fashion magazine Flux.
• Preview, Guardian Guide.
• Stand alone feature in City Life Christmas Shopping Guide

Lamorna Birch:

• Feature in The Lady magazine
• Preview, The Independent Information
• Feature, The Times
• Full page, Lancashire Life magazine
• Interview with curator, Manchester Evening News

Rock:

• 7 page feature, Black & White Photography magazine
• 2 page feature, Classic Rock magazine
• 2 page feature, Word magazine
• Features in Photography Monthly, Amateur Photographer, Record Collector

Nightfall:

• Features in Amateur Photographer & Photography Monthly
• Double page feature on photographer in Lancashire Evening Post
• 15 minute artist interview on BBC Radio GMR and BBC Radio Lancs