Title	MANFRAN
Brand	VIRGIN ATLANTIC
Product/Service	FLIGHT ROUTE
Category	A05. Travel, Transport & Leisure
Entrant	WEBER SHANDWICK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	WEBER SHANDWICK London, UNITED KINGDOM
PR	WEBER SHANDWICK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	WEBER SHANDWICK London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Stuart Lambert	Weber Shandwick	Strategy and Creative Director
Victoria Tomlin	Weber Shandwick	Account Director
Lucy Rex	Weber Shandwick	Senior Account Manager
Lauren Patterson	Weber Shandwick	Social copywriter
Liam Simpson	Weber Shandwick	Senior Producer
Chantelle Hole	Weber Shandwick	Senior Account Executive
Charlotte Powell	Weber Shandwick	Assistant Account Executive
Bill Ranatunga	Weber Shandwick	Account Director
Emma Thompson	Weber Shandwick	Managing Director

The Campaign

San Francisco and Manchester share a proudly 'northern' identity and an intertwined technology-based future. The idea was to create and visualise a new shared culture, called “ManFran”: a memorable expression not just of a new flight route but of an economic and cultural connection between two transatlantic cities. “ManFran”, we hypothesised, would be the new “NY-Lon” – the trend that led to thousands of people “supercommuting” between New York and London a decade ago. ManFran would allow us an exciting degree of topical territory to creatively explore. Would it create a new trade link between the UK and the US? What impact would closer connections have on local economies and culture? Might a blended fashion or cuisine emerge? The idea enabled us to join a far bigger debate, about Manchester’s (and Brexit Britain’s) future in a world where trade links and technology are crucial to the national conversation.

Creative Execution

We pitched our story, evidence and expert predictions to two key local media titles, the Manchester Evening News and BBC North West, weeks in advance. We curated all the ManFran mashups that our unpaid third party influencers were creating for us, and prepared a painstakingly pre-planned sequence of posts, which each individual influencer needed to follow to create the desired effect. We teed up both cities’ tourist boards to join in the fun online. On launch day, the news appeared, as desired, in local media. Our influencers then posted their ManFran creations in pre-planned sequence, throughout the day. The tourist boards and the general public joined in. We amplified engagement online by hosting a live Q&A on Twitter with a San Franciscan, so that Mancunians could find out more about the city. Now we alerted national news media to the social 'movement' happening in real time in Manchester. It worked!

The story broke with news coverage in the Manchester Evening News and on the BBC, before hitting almost every local blog, magazine and radio station. By midday, #ManFran was trending on Twitter. Powerful stakeholders took notice: Visit Britain and the Northern Powerhouse Partnership began using #ManFran and @virginatlantic on Twitter. UK trade minister Greg Hands asked to take a trade delegation to San Francisco on the inaugural flight. This was retweeted by then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne MP. Launch resutls: •1.6 million impressions on social media with 10,405 engagements •1.1k uses of #manfran on Twitter •Positive sentiment score of 9.8/10. •Editorial reach: 537m from 70 pieces of media coverage •CPM: £0.08 The story became part of a bigger conversation. National newspapers discussed the significance of Virgin’s ManFran flights against a Brexit backdrop. The campaign drove a significant spike in bookings, with zero advertising support or media buy.

There was no advertising budget or media buy available to support Virgin Atlantic’s launch of the first direct flights between Manchester and San Francisco. We told them that this was no barrier: we would use a smart channel strategy to make this launch a genuine topic of conversation on earned channels. Our idea was to create ‘ManFran’, a shared Mancunian/San Franciscan culture that could be visualised by influencers, businesses and the public - brought to life across earned social and news channels. #ManFran trended on Twitter, reached an audience of millions, earned blanket media coverage and drove bookings.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

To impact bookings we needed to focus on the Manchester population but also reach the 22 million people who live within two hours of Manchester airport. With no media buy. The primary audience was entrepreneurs and tech investors who will benefit from closer links to San Francisco’s tech industry. This determined our game-changing channel strategy. First, we spoke to every expert we could. From academic experts on transatlantic links, to international estate agents and entrepreneurs on both sides of the Atlantic, we created a huge bank of evidence and predictions. Crucially, we then secured (unpaid) commitment from local chefs, fashion designers, cocktail-makers and artists to create ManFran mashups - content for Twitter, which would be carefully sequenced on launch day to create the impression of a social movement. This would be key to attracting genuine interest from news and lifestyle publications who would turn the channel strategy into concrete results.