Summer Reopening Campaign
The Brief
During the 2021 lockdown I was invited to Brooklands Museum with marketing partners made 2010. The task was to create a reopening campaign that would rebuild visitor confidence and drive attendance at a time when most museums were still restricted by indoor capacity limits.
Brooklands had a real advantage: the majority of the site is outdoors. Vast grounds, the historic banked track, and aircraft displayed in the open air created natural space for social distancing and a more reassuring experience.
The campaign needed clear, effective messaging that worked across different demographics while positioning Brooklands as a must-visit destination.
The Insight
Brooklands isn’t just a museum, it’s land rich with British innovation. At a moment when people were craving space, fresh air, and escape, the museum’s open-air nature became its strongest strategic asset.
This insight shifted the approach from traditional exhibition-by-exhibition marketing to a cohesive destination campaign.
Creative Exploration
I explored multiple directions before refining the final platform.
Early concepts included nostalgic lines such as “This summer, journey back in time” and more assertive headlines like “Full speed ahead, new discoveries at every turn”. I also tested a “Land” platform (“Venture to the land of…”) and content structures built around the museum’s core DNA.
Social media series were developed that organised content around site, people, and objects, testing how three clear words could structure ongoing communications.
Small grid or row of 2–3 refined headline explorations from the strategy decks (e.g. “Full speed ahead…” variations and “Venture to the land of…” concepts).
The Solution
The campaign was built around three simple, powerful words:
Explore. Discover. Marvel.
This platform gave clear audience targeting while remaining unified and ownable:
Explore: the site and its history (families & casual visitors)
Discover: the stories of the people behind the machines (enthusiasts)
Marvel: the scale and engineering (new visitors & everyone)
The line was flexible enough to work across large-format print, digital, and on-site communications.
Final Campaign
The platform was executed across large-format outdoor advertising.
The hero creative placed families directly in the museum environment, standing beneath a historic aircraft, pointing and sharing the moment. This single image captured all three words at once.
Supporting executions promoted the timely McLaren exhibition while staying true to the core message. The campaign rolled out consistently across 48-sheets, supersides, and 6-sheets with bold typography and authentic photography.
My Role & Reflection
Whilst I developed the campaign creative, originating the copywriting and directed the creative, the marketing team focused on budget capabilities and campaign deployment.
By focusing on a clear, strategic platform rather than trying to include every idea, we created messaging that was ownable, scalable, and effective across formats. The final campaign gave Brooklands a memorable voice at exactly the right time.