The Hatch team have been honoured to have worked on the opening of the first two Ivy Collection restaurants in Yorkshire over the past few months. The glitz and the glamour of both Harrogate and York poured in to have the first sneak peak of the exclusive restaurants which offer ‘sophisticated and accessible all-day dining’.
Hatch started on the project back in August with pre-opening PR, which included a local community initiative for each restaurant. For Harrogate, we joined up with luxury Jeweller Ogden of Harrogate to design a bespoke Ivy inspired necklace. The Ivy Harlequin Necklace went on display at the restaurant opening and was then auctioned at the Harrogate Candlelighters Ball at the start of December.
We had some fantastic coverage for the necklace including the Yorkshire Post Life and Style, Gorgeous Yorkshire, Harrogate Advertiser and Stray FM.
In York, we sponsored the St Leonard’s Hospice ‘Light up a Life’ Christmas tree, which goes up every year in St Helen’s Square in York, right outside the restaurant, and as part of the sponsorship we ran a Christmas bauble design competition with the hospice patients, families and staff. The ‘Holly & Ivy’ bauble won the competition and we created 350 limited edition baubles to be sent to the charity shops to be sold for £10, with 100% of the proceeds going to the charity.
Gifted some baubles to local press, The Minster FM breakfast presenters in particular loved their bauble and mentioned it two days’ in a row on air and via Twitter.
In addition to our initiatives, we also profiled the General Managers and Head Chefs of each restaurant by getting involved in local chef demonstrations – in Harrogate we attended the Flower Show and impressed the crowds with the chocolate bombe!
Hatch were also responsible for pulling together guestlists for two preview nights for both sites; a business evening and an influencer night. All four events had a strong guestlist of 250 key influential people from Welcome to Yorkshire to local hairdressers, and not forgetting the local celebs!
Yes, that’s Ben from A1 and that lad from Eastenders (below)!
Once opened, Hatch further engaged press with review experiences and hosted exclusive breakfasts for influencers. The Yorkshire Evening Post did an excellent double page spread review, which was also syndicated in the i newspaper.
There have been many benefits from working with the Ivy, like sampling the food and champagne from their own vineyard! Jason has already been spotted eating his body’s weight in Shepherd’s Pie and will be literally ‘rolling’ into Christmas!
Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
With love,
Holly (and the Ivy!)
