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Campaign: Photographic Exhibition launch June 2002
Timescale: Phase One, 3 months; Phase Two, ongoing.
Budget: Not disclosed

Earth from the Air is an exhibition of 150 images by renowned French aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It had previously been a huge success in his native Paris, where the concept of displaying the stunning images in very large formats in the open air was born. Our client had secured the UK rights to the exhibition and had agreement to stage it in the gardens of the Natural History Museum in London. The only obstacles in the way of the launch were securing planning permission from the local authority and achieving a launch to capitalise on the summer season. This was especially important as the exhibition had to be free to view, so sales from the on-site shop were crucial to its viability.

Objectives:
MMC was hired to run the PR campaign in April 2002. Our brief was to raise the profile of the artist, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, awareness of the exhibition and its pioneering format at its launch in June. With Planning permission likely to be granted 21 days ahead of the planned launch, the challenge was substantial.

Strategy and Plan:
With little lead time, magazine deadlines had passed and our strategy was to target the national newspapers, listings, broadcast media, local and capital media in the build up to and at the launch. A second phase aimed at magazines and photographic titles would follow.

Results:
In advance of the launch photo stories and features appeared in the Times and Express newspapers and a selection of the images was erected in the Blue Peter garden for alive broadcast. The launch was covered by all the broadsheets with over 50 journalists attending the launch event along with 400 other guests. A profile of Yann Arthus-Bertrand ran in the Financial Times and the exhibition was reviewed in Time Magazine. In total MMC and the Natural History Museum Press team delivered a certified readership of 42 million in coverage over the first 3 months of the exhibition, with radio and TV coverage in London and internationally.

Further coverage:
The exhibition has continued to be promoted with PR support and its extension and modification to include images for blind visitors enabled a re-launch in July 2003. This attracted TV reports on CNN, CNN 360 Degrees, BBC News 24, BBC World, British Satellite News, four French TV channels and interviews on approximately 20 radio stations, plus significant coverage in newspapers and magazines.