The BBC recently committed to opening a new broadcast centre in Birmingham and this campaign reflected a unique partnership, based on shared values, between the BBC and the West Midlands –and set out to change preconceived notions of the region, entertain BBC audiences, and generate footfall.

Campaign themes reflected tourism insight: that US tourists rate the UK for history, vibrant cities, and famous sites; and that London-bound international tourists are most likely to visit off-the-beaten-path destinations.

Through a dynamic, personable and humorous film and digital experience, featuring the diverse faces of the West Midlands, we reflected everything it has to offer across culture, history, food and activities.

The people of the region are the face of this campaign. With a cast of high-profile locals like Black Sabbath legend, Tony Iommi, and Michelin-starred chef, Glynn Purnell, our audience got a unique tour via activities that brought the region to life, such as the Black Country Living Museum, Black Sabbath ballet, and the Balti triangle. Fast-paced shots and a humorous tone showcased diversity and variety: the fact that you can go to a castle first thing morning, for example, meet William Shakespeare in the afternoon, and dine in Birmingham’s buzzy city at night.

Characters from all walks of life showed the West Midlands as open to all. We convinced Tony Iommi, godfather of heavy metal, to talk about his love of his hometown, Birmingham. His passion echoed that of the Ditta brothers, who run the Royal Watan – a cornerstone of Brum’s Balti community. Having such recognizable clout mirror the love from locals reveals the authenticity of the region’s welcome.

The branded film, hosted on a page on bbc.com and our social channels, features portraits of those in the films across chapters: culture, food, history, activities. We split chapters based on target audience interests: history, culture and experiences being top travel motivators. Food related articles on BBC Travel are always top performing. A brand ident overlaid film and page design – its poppy, baroque nature lends itself to the region’s identity – demure but also big, bright and entertaining. Image galleries and pop-out quotes bring the written experience to life.

On social, we featured individual portraits of the West Midlands. We tagged Tony Iommi on an organic IG post which led to 82k views. The social strategy brought the campaign to life across IG, Facebook, LinkedIn and X, continuing our human-led storytelling approach across formats.

StoryWorks-created custom digital display ads distributed across BBC.com and the BBC News app helped us reach our target audience, driving high volumes of traffic and encouraging positive engagement. Bespoke banner assets drove users to our content, through a combination of audience targeting (reaching relevant cohorts) and strategic takeovers of key verticals such as BBC Travel and BBC Culture, achieving over 4 million impressions and 16,000 clicks. These snackable, mini storytelling units gave audiences a snapshot into the West Midlands welcome, while a tailored Tony Iommi special made sure metal music lovers got their fill.

In addition to our premium traffic drivers, the film was further amplified through paid YouTube pre-roll assets specifically created to target our audience, driving over 55k impressions and generating strong engagement (close to a 4% CTR, surpassing all internal benchmarks).

The bespoke digital experience attracted an impressive 32,065 page views within the first two months – surpassing targets despite a very modest promotional budget. Thanks to strategic creative direction, based on our audiences’ interests in culture, food, history and experiences, we produced an effective traffic-driving creative and multi-platform distribution.

A total of 304,849 video views were generated through campaign and social media efforts, with two-thirds of traffic coming from the US and one-third from Canada. Visitors were highly engaged, averaging 3 minutes and 55 seconds on-site.

Social media activity achieved 557.9k impressions (435k paid, 122.9k organic), with the strongest reach in California, Texas, Quebec, and Ontario. A 30-second Instagram cut featuring Tony Iommi was the top performer, boasting a 12.8% engagement rate — well above the 3-6% industry average.

We used a two-tier measurement approach: AdScore assessed brand impact, while our in-house Science of Engagement (SoE) tool, which uses eye-tracking and facial encoding technology to track emotional impact and specific points of content engagement, analysed emotional response – and revealed that the film ranked in the top 3% for happiness on the BBC benchmark.

In fact, 88% of viewers enjoyed the creative (4% above average), with strong alignment between BBC and WMGC branding. AdScore showed 87% found the campaign “talkable,” 83% wanted to learn more about the West Midlands, and 78% viewed the region as fun and energetic – validating our tone of voice.

Overall, the campaign successfully boosted awareness and favourability of the West Midlands among US and Canadian audiences.

Campaign video content