The Manchester Museum

We were tasked with creating and implementing a PR campaign for the launch of The Manchester Museum’s groundbreaking Living Worlds gallery – employing a European set designer, Villa Eugenie.

The partnership with Villa Eugenie was much more than just the design and refurbishment of a gallery space. The Living Worlds media campaign needed to convey the Museum’s values whilst simultaneously exciting the public that this natural history collection is different and exciting.

The stars of the show – the lions, polar bears, antelopes – were the focus of the campaign. We wanted to capture their beauty and ferocity: not the passivity in glass cabinets that visitors might anticipate. We commissioned Graeme Cooper to photograph the exhibits and bring them alive outside of their gallery confines, to recreate the ‘Living World’ for the media. For the launch event, we brought in an event photographer, Ant Clausen, to capture the beauty of Living Worlds within the more austere surroundings of the Museum. The images were issued to media on the evening, and have now been supplied to The Manchester Museum as collateral for future projects and publicity.

We had a tremendous amount of coverage including BBC Northwest Tonight, BBC Radio Manchester, Manchester Evening News, Salford Advertiser, The Asian News, South Manchester Reporter, Oldham Advertiser, Accrington Observer, Stockport Express, Glossop Advertiser, Museums Journal, Lancashire Living and Uni Life Magazine as well as online and blogs such as BBC Online, Mancunian Matters, Caught by the River, Manchester Confidential, Culture 24, Mumsnet, My Manchester, Inside the M60, Audio Boo, PalaeoManchester and Art News Worldwide.