Midas delivers a high-profile and impactful campaign for Affordable Art Fair Battersea Autumn 2023
The Brief
Midas was appointed to deliver a targeted media campaign for Affordable Art Fair Battersea Autumn 2023, positioning it as the most loved and joyful art fair in London’s busy autumn season.
Our objectives were to deliver an intelligent media campaign to drive footfall at the fair through enhanced listings in at least 10 target publications, with at least 50% mentioning specifics of programme. We also aimed to achieve standalone features in at least 3 quality target publications in the run-up to or during Fair week across any agreed-upon angles, plus achieve one feature positioning Hugo Barclay as an expert in the arts and culture landscape. We set out to secure a minimum of 40 pieces of coverage across the campaign.
The Work
At the outset, following an initial call with the AAF team, we finalised a PR Plan with agreed key messaging, overall strategy, feature angles, and target media. We worked closely with AAF to develop our media hooks throughout the campaign. Over the course of our campaign, Midas secured a wide breadth of publicity for Affordable Art Fair Battersea Autumn 2023 across listings, newspapers, lifestyle and arts magazines, London-based media, and broadcast.
We came up with a variety of feature ideas focused on various aspects of the fair. We focused on Campaign Artist Matt Dosa and his incredible journey to becoming a professional artist following a horrific accident, pitching this out to nationals and lifestyle magazines as a fascinating personal interest story. As October was Black History Month, we highlighted the fair’s feature exhibition championing the work of living Black artists, pitching out to arts and lifestyle magazines, as well as BAME media. We also highlighted the fair’s Recent Graduate Exhibition showcasing emerging young talent, emphasizing AAF’s commitment to supporting the next generation of artists. Finally, we positioned Affordable Art Fair UK director Hugo Barclay as an art expert and offered him to lifestyle and arts media as a spokesperson. We developed these ideas in time to pitch out to long-lead media, lifestyle magazines, and specifically arts-focused media.
In terms of smaller features, we researched themes and trends in the art world to capitalise on those that would be exhibited at the fair, pitching out to art and design outlets as well as relevant lifestyle magazines. In addition, we identified 3-5 artists exhibiting at the fair who we believed had the most interesting stories to pitch out to arts-focused and regional media. We also utilized the fair’s affordability element to pitch AAF Battersea as the place to buy art for friends and family at the most accessible prices. Positioning AAF Battersea Autumn as a not-to-be-missed event for the month of October, we also pitched it out to London listings as well as arts/culture listings.
We also carried out extensive outreach to invite photographers and press to attend the fair, whether that be at the Private Viewing or Collector’s Breakfast, with the hopes of building up relationships between the AAF team – such as Hugo Barclay – and the journalists in attendance.
The Results
Midas secured 73 pieces of coverage with an estimated reach of 317,560,855 for Affordable Art Fair Battersea Autumn. 47 of these were online mentions, 23 were considered high-quality pieces based on agreed upon media targets, and 14 were national stories. We achieved listings coverage in Time & Leisure, Country Life, Londonist, The Week, Country & Town House, Culture Whisper, Arts & Collections, Premier, The Voice, Country Life, and South London Community Matters.
Campaign artist Matt Dosa was featured in Mail Online, The Times, The Express, MyLondon, IrelandLive, WalesOnline, and BristolLive. In addition, we garnered coverage for Hugo Barclay in Country Life, Yahoo!, and BBC Radio 4’s You & Yours. Overall coverage highlights included AAF-focused stories in The Times and The Telegraph. Another feature piece related to the fair appeared in House Beautiful.
We had great press attendance at the fair off the back of our media coverage and sending. Journalists from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and Evening Standard, and lifestyle mags such as Country Life, Vogue, Hello!, Citizen Femme, LUX Magazine, Amateur Photographer, and Food and TRAVEL Magazine attended the fair. London-based press from Enjoy London, South-West London, and Out in London were also in attendance. Photographer presence at the fair resulted in a photo-journalism piece in The Times.
We exceeded all out original coverage goals, with 20 enhanced listings, 19 standalone features, 2 pieces positioning Hugo as an arts expert, 15 press attendees.
We are pleased with the breadth of coverage secured for AAF Battersea Autumn 2023, particularly the positive response across national outlets and lifestyle magazines, as well as the high number of listings. Our estimated reach improved 550% from AAF Hampstead, as did the percentage of national stories secured.