The Brief
Midas were asked to promote the thirteenth edition of the Landscape Photographer of the Year coffee-table book, published by AA Publishing on 19 October. The book contains spectacular full-colour prints of the winning and commended entries from the 2020 Landscape Photographer of the Year competition, showcasing the UK’s most beautiful and dramatic scenery through the sharp eyes of the nation’s best amateur and professional photographers.
Our objectives for the campaign were to secure reviews, features and book roundups across national print and digital media, interviews and news stories across regional outlets and broadcast interviews for Charlie Waite and the shortlisted photographers.
The Work
Kickstarting the campaign we sent the press release out to all media, putting the book forward for reviews and roundups and the images for photo features. We also created individual image sheets to send to journalists for image requests.
Due to the variety of images we had at our disposable, we were able to target a broad range of media, including but not limited to national newspapers, lifestyle and country magazines, travel and history press. We achieved this by tailoring our pitches accordingly and using images relevant to each publication.
A challenge which emerged during the campaign was the embargo on press coverage. All coverage was under strict embargo until 19 October and it was crucial that we stressed to all media that zero coverage could run before then. Each journalist had to sign a confidentiality agreement letter in order to gain access to the book and images. This proved difficult as not every journalist was as forthcoming on signing the agreement as others, and in some cases required a lot of chasing and coaxing on our end, which subsequently caused a delay in both handling image requests and sending the book out to press.
The Results
We achieved wide-spread coverage across national and regional press – a combination of reviews, features and interviews in:
- Daily Mail
- Daily Express
- The Sun
- The Times
- Metro
- Daily Mirror
- Daily Star
- The Scotsman
- The Herald
- Scottish Express
Reaching print magazines was a core aspect of the campaign and we managed to secure coverage in:
- The Field
- Country Life
- Wanderlust
- Yours
- Wired for Adventure
- The Countryman
Highlights from the campaign included landing the front cover of Country Life magazine’s Oct 21st issue with a photo of photographer Michael Johnston’s ‘Beech tree avenue’ image from the Your View collection, followed by a six-page photo feature. Another highlight was a seven-page photo feature which appeared in The Field’s Christmas special December issue. We also managed to secure a double page photo feature in Wanderlust and Yours, the latter of which also launched a Christmas giveaway; Wired for Adventure ran a six-page photo spread dedicated to the photographers’ stories behind the image and The Countryman ran a diary piece mentioning the winner’s announcement in their November issue, followed by an eight-page photo spread titled ‘Glorious Britain’ which ran in their December issue.
Our regional and broadcast coverage included:
- The Shetland Times
- Daily Record
- Sunday Post
- Dorset Magazine
- Dorset Echo
- BBC Radio Scotland
- BBC Radio Orkney
- BBC Radio Highlands and Islands
- BBC Radio Shetland
- Talk Radio Europe
- BBC Radio Devon
- BBC Radio Jersey
- BBC Radio Guernsey
Overall, we secured over 60 pieces of coverage including 10 national newspaper pieces, and a total estimated reach of 396,449,772.