The Big 870
Wales Coast
Path
In 2022, the Wales Coast Path celebrated its 10th anniversary. Free and accessible all-year-round, it’s a visitor destination like no other — spanning 870 miles of uninterrupted coastline.
To mark the milestone, Equinox was tasked with devising a low-budget PR/digital campaign to engage as many people as possible with the Path between June and September 2022.
We set out to deliver a highly-engaging campaign to drive visitors during 2022 and beyond, promote the Path’s accessibility/inclusivity and inspire communities from Wales, the UK and beyond to engage with Welsh culture.
Introducing: The Big 870 — a nation-wide, summer-long walking challenge, uniting leisurely strollers, hikers, dog-walkers, cyclists, wheelchair-users, horse-riders, community-groups, families, residents and visitors alike to collectively walk 870 miles anywhere along the Wales Coast Path.
Equinox used the PESO model across three campaign phases (challenge announcement, driving participation and final total reveal) to deliver the concept.
Tactics:
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Mix of paid, earned, shared and owned channels.
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Highly-targeted Meta advertising campaign — paired with bilingual The Big 870 | Her 870 branding (designed by Equinox) — driving target audiences to pledge their miles. All ads were A/B tested, monitored daily, and tweaked to ensure optimum results vs. KPIs.
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Influencer engagement: Siân Lloyd and Shân Cothi were chosen for their collective following of 77.7k and existing passion for the Path (ensuring authenticity and brand-alignment).
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PR activity to raise awareness of the challenge; plus, end-of-challenge PR to celebrate total distance pledged — positioning WCP as a desirable destination. The second story featured heart-warming/quirky case studies from individuals who took part, for maximum PR-mileage.
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Engagement with partners/stakeholders (e.g. LAs, tourism information officers, Visit Wales, Ramblers, Young Farmers’ Clubs etc) via a stakeholder toolkit, generating word-of-mouth amongst wider audiences.
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Social media competition to drive user-generated-content.
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Organic social media content promoting key campaign milestones, incl. use of Instagram Reels and Facebook Stories.
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Development of creative/shareable digital-content for distribution through Facebook/Twitter/Instagram.
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Inclusion of full challenge details on WCP’s website, including a form to pledge mileage (data stored securely in line with GDPR).
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Release of a bespoke ‘completers’ merchandise range, designed for gifting and commemorating walking-achievements.
Our strategy and savvy implementation produced a highly cost-effective campaign, achieving more than double — almost triple — the KPIs, to mark a decade of the Wales Coast Path:
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