The Vienna Tourist Board commissioned the building of a model of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra –made entirely of sand. The impressive sculpture measured six metres high by fifteen metres wide and was situated on a popular part of Le Barceloneta beach. The campaign’s purpose was to encourage the citizens of Spain to visit Vienna by showcasing the range of music on offer to visitors. The sand orchestra was on display for five days and the ‘Sound in the Sand’ campaign came to a lively end with a huge free beach party beside the sculpture, which featured an international line-up of DJs from Barcelona, Vienna and Ibiza.
The campaign resulted in widespread national press coverage, across many different media channels. Highlights included a front-page story on national newspaper La Vanguardia, as well as prominent features in El Mundo, El Pais, and three of the country’s other main national papers. The sand sculpture achieved 13 TV clippings on many of Spain’s main TV channels, including its largest – TVE. Barcelona TV visited the sculpture five times during its build, conducting in-depth interviews with the sand sculptors and the Vienna Tourist Board itself. Further to this, the campaign received five radio broadcasts and 67 online news stories.
With more than 90 media clippings in Spain and around the world, Imagination’s PR team achieved an estimated reach of 33.65 million people.
Norbert Kettner, Managing Director of the Vienna Tourist Board said: "’Sound in the Sand’, the Vienna Tourist Board's latest marketing campaign in Barcelona, inspired people at Barceloneta beach to travel to Vienna. Capturing media attention was imperative to prevail. As we measure our partners' performance by the same high standards of quality we employ on ourselves, we chose Imagination's services when it came to promoting our event and generating media attention. Imagination proved to be a highly reliable, professional and well positioned partner fully satisfying our requirements throughout the campaign. We are looking forward to drawing on Imagination's expertise in future projects as well."