Looking Back at the Route 57 Road Trip
Back in 2016, I teamed up with the London agency Agenda 21 to drive Route 57.
Route 57 is made up of 10 smaller road trips covering 57 of the UK’s top destinations, as created by Jurys Inn Hotels. Agenda 21 was pivotal in creating this route that’s been dubbed as the UK and Ireland’s Route 66. On seeing it that I decided to pitch the idea of driving it.
My interests lie heavily in the future of transport so it made sense to do the 2,500-mile distance around the UK and Ireland in an electric car.
The Problem
The purpose of creating the Route 57 map was to generate coverage and backlinks for Jurys Inns, which it did. But in order to achieve valuable online local newspaper coverage, the trip had to become a reality rather than a simple concept.
Google shifted the goalposts for hotel chains with its Hotel Finder tool and Jurys Inn suffered more than most in the Hotel Finder local search results. It needed a strategy to regain those rankings organically and a large-scale event incorporating the route was a great solution.
The Goal
The goal of the trip was to provide valuable coverage for Jurys Inns to support SEO and PR efforts. Agenda 21 handled setting up meetings with journalists, photographers and local mayors to increase coverage while I focussed on piloting the Kia Soul EV over more than 2,500 across the three-week trip. The goal was to achieve organic coverage for the trip and links back to the Jurys Inns Route 57 page.
The Journey
Over three weeks, I explored the UK and Ireland, visiting some well-known sights alongside some hidden gems. I also got to test out the charging infrastructure in all corners of the UK and Ireland.
There were plenty of ups and downs but it was incredible to meet enthusiastic people who were all pushing towards a cleaner, greener future for their towns and cities.
We stopped at 57 destinations around the UK are Ireland, meeting mayors (who have the best restaurant recommendations, by the way), journalists and EV enthusiasts.
During the trip we were also posting on social media, sharing photos, filming video content and taking notes on how much coffee I’d consumed. The goal of all this content was to turn it into a final review of the whole trip that would inspire others.
The Results
152 pieces of coverage
Top Hotel Finder rankings for multiple locations
Revenue increase of 236%
The scale of the trip and a lot of hard work from the folks behind the scenes meant that Jurys Inns was talked about in 152 pieces of coverage, helping it reach the top spot in Google’s Hotel Finder in Brighton, Edinburgh, Dublin and Galway. These locations saw a revenue increase of 236% year-on-year.
The press coverage ranged from local TV pieces to specialist automotive media to newspaper stories. This included appearing on Robert Llewellyn’s Fully Charged Show.
Jurys Inns was also able to use much of the content created in marketing campaigns throughout the rest of the year.
I created a final write up and video, which can be found here.
This is a great example of how a big event or stunt can increase interest and coverage to support SEO, PR and wider content marketing goals.
If you have large goals (such as revenue or conversion rate increase) a stunt or trip like this can be a great way to generate interest around what you’re doing. This project crossed the lines between SEO and PR to create a huge amount of coverage that helped Jurys Inns hit a number of goals and rise to the top of the rankings.
If you’d like to discuss how Jet Social can help you with a project of this scale, please get in touch.