We were thrilled when we were invited to pitch to Marketing Lancashire (previously Lancashire & Blackpool Tourist Board) to look at a project to mark a dark time in our local history. The brief was to create a campaign and brand to mark the 400 year anniversary of the Lancashire Witch Trials.

Our pitch (which if you have not already seen on our blog, was packaged up in a custom “witches curse box” - find out more here about what we did…) won the account.

The aim – promote short breaks in Lancashire which are themed around this historical backdrop, increase traffic to visitlancashire.com, increase contracts with partners, and generate an increase in brochure requests for the 2012 Lancashire Visitors Guide.

The solution - was a campaign which promoted an anniversary Witches Driving Trail, which takes visitors on a historical journey through key locations in the Witches’ story, from Barrowford through to Lancaster Castle where the alleged practitioners of the dark arts were tried, and subsequently hanged for their crimes.

We branded the event, which involved the creation of a microsite, monthly email marketing campaign and companion printed trail guide.

The microsite is a small, single page affair which gives viewers access to an interactive map of the trail. Key historical areas are plotted on the map containing background information along with locations of witch themed exhibitions, museums and attractions. Our approach also created opportunities for partners to generate revenue and gain exposure by having their locations plotted on the map.

This makes it easy for users to plan their visit and check out places to eat, shop and stay whilst taking in the historical sites along the route.

A printed trail map was created to mirror the site. This pocket “z-card” guide gives visitors not just a detailed map, but background information about the witches story and step-by-step directions of the trail. Partners were also keen to get involved, and were given the option to have their business plotted on the map with a companion listing on the reverse of the sheet. This item was distributed to over 35k people and inserted into both Yorkshire Life and Northern Life magazines.

The campaign is still being measured as it runs through to September 2012, but currently it has generated over 16,000 page views on the new landing page with a further 50,000 page views on witch-related pages and product. The total campaign has reached around 3 million people so far.

You can find out more about the Lancashire witches at visitlancashire.com/witches2012