Industry Leisure & Tourism

If you’re marketing a place, whether it’s somewhere to spend a day, somewhere to stay or somewhere to live, what you’re really offering people is an experience they haven’t had yet. Your advert’s job is to take them there for thirty seconds, so that they can picture themselves in it with the people they’d most like to share it with. Here are some of the adverts we’ve made that do that.

Why TV suits places and experiences

TV is very good at this because it’s the nearest thing to being there. Pictures and sound on a big screen can show what a place looks like, what it sounds like and how it feels to be in it, which a leaflet or a listing can’t do. It also reaches people when they’re together. Days out, holidays and a move to somewhere new are nearly always decided by more than one person, and television is still mostly watched in company, so when your advert comes on, the people who’d be going are often sitting on the same sofa. What you’re hoping for is somebody saying “I want to go there”, because that starts the conversation there and then in the living room, and much of the persuading is done before anybody has looked you up.

That holds whatever the place is. For an attraction or a venue it’s a day to look forward to, and for a town or a destination it’s a reason to make the trip. For a holiday park it can be something bigger, a place of your own to go back to again and again, or to live in, and the advert’s job is still to make people want to be there, so that they come and see it for themselves. Maguire’s Country Parks, whose advert is on this page, sell holiday homes and residential homes on their parks.

Timing matters as well. These campaigns are usually bought by region, because most visitors live within a comfortable drive, and they do best in the weeks when people are making plans, such as the run-up to the school holidays, a bank holiday or the start of your season. If you’re opening or launching a new season, you need to be on air on the day, which means working back from the date to leave time for filming, editing and clearance. We’ve set out the stages in how long does it take to get a TV ad on air?

We made the launch commercial for Haven Point in South Shields with the agency Forward & Thinking, and it was shot, cleared and on air with ITV in time for opening day. We’ve also produced TV ads for The Alnwick Garden, Lilidorei, Alnwick Castle, Ad Gefrin, Enjoy Darlington and The Word, which is also in South Shields.

If you’ve somewhere you’d like more people to discover, have a chat with us while there’s still plenty of time before your season, and you can see what TV advertising costs in the meantime.