The surrounding area is home to truly stunning scenery and historical landmarks, including Ireland’s only UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Giants Causeway. The aim of the project was to highlight ten preconfigured tourist routes, drive tourism and boost the local economy. The research stage involved detailed map planning and driving all ten routes in preparation for creating a campaign that encouraged these international race fans to ‘Stay A While’.

After spending time with the team on the beautiful North Coast to discuss the project, we set about trying to tie these two disparate events. We settled on one of the most iconic and universal symbols in motorsport: the chequered flag.

 

Not many countries have strong ties to a specific geometrical shape but, due the natural wonder that is the Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland happens to be one of the few. Flanked by the wild Atlantic Ocean and a landscape of dramatic cliffs, an estimated 40,000 interlocking basalt columns make up this World Heritage Site. Formed some 50-60 million years ago after a period of intense volcanic activity, followed by a cooling and contracting of the volcanic plateau – unless you believe in the legends of giants that is – the majority of the columns appear hexagonal in shape.

 

The combination of these two graphic devices created the visual bridge between the chequered flag and tourism, inspiring our campaign aesthetic. The logo, typographically mirroring the sweeping curves and straights of the NW200 street circuit, incorporated ten hexagons, each representing one of the ten tourist routes around the country.

This was a high-profile campaign for both NW200 and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. After being selected as the creative partner to lead the project, we managed a complex campaign that involved a highly detailed collaboration between various service providers in Northern Ireland and a logistic design of tourist trails that took months to research and prepare. The result was a significant increase in post-race tourism, which positively impacted the local economy and introduced more people to the Emerald Isle.