Turtle Bay

Caribbean-inspired major restaurant chain Turtle Bay is one of the UK’s most popular restaurants.

Reach in 8 weeks

VIP guests attended

Social media reach from 11 influencers

The Brief

Turtle Bay approached Faith PR to provide PR support for the launch of their new, 190-cover restaurant in Huddersfield. We were asked to look after all PR activity ahead of the event as well as the launch night itself over a two-month period. As part of this activity, Turtle Bay required the following: 

  • Media relations to raise awareness both before, during and after the launch 
  • Targeted social media activity and social media competitions to raise awareness of the restaurant coming to Huddersfield 
  • The creation of a VIP guest list for the launch night with a target of 1,200 invites and 850 RSVPs 
  • Management of the guest list and door on the opening night. 

 

Approach

Media relations 

To announce and cement the addition of Turtle Bay to Huddersfield’s restaurant scene ahead of the restaurant opening, we identified a number of media opportunities that would allow Turtle Bay to achieve targeted press coverage in the build up to the restaurant opening. This included desk visits, photo calls and journalist one-to-ones. 

Pre-launch influencer event 

We also co-ordinated a blogger event that was held at the restaurant a week before the grand opening, which was attended by key food & drink and lifestyle bloggers from the region. The event was blogged about by all attendees and also covered extensively on social media. 

Social media 

We devised two social media competitions to give away a select number of tickets, targeting both Huddersfield residents as well as key ‘influencers’ and bloggers. The first competition was based around people tweeting us pics of their most ‘exotic’ location in Huddersfield, while the second was trivia about the Caribbean which required people to answer specific questions using the hashtag #TBayHudds. 

Guest list creation and management 

Turtle Bay wanted to us to ensure that a diverse range of guests from various cultures, companies and organisations across Huddersfield and the wider areas were in attendance on the VIP launch night. 

To ensure that this was the case, we carried out extensive research into key companies, local figures and influencers from across the area before issuing a total of 1,200 targeted invitations both via email, social media, on the phone and in person across all target sectors. 

Results

In summary, the launch of Turtle Bay Huddersfield was a great success, with over 1,060 RSVPs ahead of the launch and 720 guests attending on the evening – an 18% uplift vs target. 

A diverse range of guests on the evening included attendees from design and marketing agencies, artists, fashion retailers, independent boutiques, hairdressers and charities. There was also a strong turnout from the Afro Caribbean community across Huddersfield. 

Our ongoing press office activity throughout the duration of the launch achieved extensive coverage across local and regional print media as well as online business desks, with  10 pieces of local and regional coverage and a reach of 283,000 in an 8-week period, including the front page of Huddersfield Examiner 

We also achieved significant social media and blog coverage as a result of our pre-launch blogger event, which consequently has helped to spread the word amongst the Leeds food blogger scene – with Leeds food bloggers since contacting us to ask when Turtle Bay is opening in Leeds. 

The launch was commended as “one of the best ever launch parties out of 20 UK openings” by Turtle Bay founder Ajith Jayawickrema who attended on the night.