Case Study: Go Blue on South Granville

Social Media, Events & PR

To kick off the 2019 fresh blueberry season, Social T. collaborated with the British Columbia Blueberry Council (BCBC) to help curate a unique seasonal event. The BCBC teamed up with the South Granville Business Improvement Association (SGBIA) to celebrate all things blue - as in blueberries - in the form of a 10-day festival along South Granville: “Go Blue on South Granville.” The goal of the event was to bring fresh BC blueberries from the Fraser Valley to consumers in the city.

Go Blue involved 14 different restaurants to feature limited blueberry-inspired menu items. Additionally, 11 retailers celebrated blueberries in their own ways with blue-hued window displays and sale items.

Event promotion and public relations managed by Social T included:

Media coverage in outlets through press release distribution
Content creation for BCBC’s social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest
Partnered with Spring Advertising to design the new GBSG brand and creative pieces
Aligned with Hallam Media/Digital Punch for digital ad buying to increase Facebook event page engagement
Influencer outreach for recipe creation
Photography
Social media contesting

To kick-off and wrap-up the event in-style, two parties were hosted at participating South Granville restaurants where local growers, influencers, media personnel and key tastemakers in the food and lifestyle space were in attendance. A custom hashtag, #GoBlueSouthGran, encouraged social sharing, and board members of both BCBC and SGBIA were present to officially announce the start of the event.

Vancouver’s top food bloggers created blueberry-centric menu items in correlation with the event. Creative dishes such as blueberry gnocchi, vegan blueberry “nice” cream and rice pudding were dished up by the collaborators. To top things off, the BCBC partnered with VITA Daily and the popular luxury consignment store Mine & Yours to give away a $1,000 gift card to the South Granville outlet.

As a result of the event and associated media outreach, not only did South Granville experience an average of 84 more people walking the streets each day, BCBC’s online presence also grew, with organic website traffic increased by 78% in the month of July and over 70,000 engagements across social media platforms.