WHAT?
With the spotlight firmly on Bradford as the UK City of Culture 2025, Yasper was appointed to provide strategic media relations support to a trio of creative initiatives and community-led projects across the city.
The three separate briefs comprised promoting the inaugural Leeds Road Festival; the unveiling of The Big Hug (a four-tonne eco sculpture); and providing a helping hand with the biggest and boldest Bradford South Asian Festival yet.
While these three cultural initiatives were largely unrelated, our role was consistent in raising awareness and securing positive regional and national media coverage, helping each organisation tell its story with authenticity and impact.
Together, these projects showcased Yasper’s ability to work across the arts, community and cultural sectors, combining strategic media relations counsel with a deep understanding of the role culture plays in driving engagement, participation, and pride of place.
Working closely with each organisation, the Yasper team developed tailored communications strategies to reflect the individual aims, audiences, and funders behind the projects.
Each project involved careful consideration of the client’s objectives and audiences, and then expertly navigating the media landscape to ensure that they were covered positively in relevant titles.
Across all three projects, Yasper combined strategy, storytelling, and trusted media relationships to ensure high-quality press imagery and timely coverage, helping each initiative tell its own story and show how it contributed to Bradford’s wider cultural narrative during the City of Culture year. A secondary objective was highlighting the positive impact each project had when it came to community engagement and local identity.
HOW?
RESULTS
1bn+
estimated combined media reach across print, online, and broadcast coverage
25,000
visitors to the inaugural Leeds Road Festival
39
individual pieces of coverage across the three projects
Drawing on our understanding of the city, its communities, and the cultural landscape, we helped to ensure each initiative reached the right audiences and achieved meaningful engagement.
For the Leeds Road Festival, our work helped generate regional and national awareness of the inaugural event, securing opinion-based features, broadcast coverage, and photography in The Times. This strategic approach supported organisers in attracting around 25,000 visitors over three days.
With The Leap’s ‘Big Hug’ installation, we secured coverage on BBC Online, Times Online and key regional outlets, helping to position the eco-sculpture as an example of how the arts and the outdoors can bring people together.
For the Bradford South Asian Festival’s Shadmanny! weekend, our targeted media engagement highlighted the festival and its celebration of South Asian food, arts and culture. Our team ensured high-quality press photography was captured, which helped generate coverage across a range of outlets, driving awareness ahead of the biggest and boldest iteration of the event to date.
The combined reach of these campaigns was an estimated 1bn+ opportunities to see across print, online, and broadcast channels, demonstrating Yasper’s ability to amplify cultural projects on a local and national level.
