Project: Public awareness campaign
Client: The Tall Ships Races Aberdeen 2025
The Tall Ships Races Aberdeen 2025 returns to the city for the first time in nearly 30 years in July 2025. It is Europe’s largest free family event, and the 45 incredible ships already signed up from the Americas, Middle East and Europe are expected to attract 400,000 visits to the city.
The Tall Ships visits in the 1990s are still fresh in the city’s memory and evoke waves of goodwill – but the Aberdeen of 2025 is very different and there is no place for complacency when it comes to successfully running this once-in-a-generation event.
The mission: co-ordinating a public awareness campaign
The Tall Ships Races Aberdeen is shaping up to be a landmark event, drawing in a vast audience and requiring a robust team of volunteers and sail trainees.
Facing the challenge of recruiting significant numbers within a specific timeframe, the organising team – Aberdeen Inspired, Aberdeen City Council and Port of Aberdeen – engaged Hoolet to develop and execute a targeted public awareness campaign.
Our primary objective was twofold:
- to recruit 400 enthusiastic volunteers to ensure a warm Aberdeen welcome for international crews and visitors
- to fill 100 life-changing sail trainee positions for young adventurers
Beyond mere numbers, the campaign aimed to foster inclusivity, reaching individuals beyond traditional engagement channels. This meant connecting with those less active on social media, disadvantages individuals or those facing accessibility challenges as well as communities outside the immediate city of Aberdeen.
The campaign launched with a fanfare in mid-October, with just over three months to spread the word before the application deadline at the end of January.
What we did
To achieve these public awareness campaign goals, Hoolet crafted a comprehensive communications strategy encompassing:
- Targeted communications strategy and planning: we developed distinct strategies for volunteer and sail trainee recruitment, focusing on specific target audiences and key messages. Using an audience segmentation strategy, we identified key demographics and built personas to tailor messaging for both volunteer and sail trainee recruitment.
- Engaging media and PR: we created compelling media releases, website content and human-interest stories, supplemented by impactful video production.
- Strategic digital marketing: we deployed targeted paid social media on TikTok and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) platforms, optimising for engagement and Over the six weeks of the campaigns, we adapted our approach based on performance data, shifting budget from TikTok to Meta platforms for improved results.
- Community outreach: we organised rotas and supported pop-up events at key locations like universities, sports halls and shopping centres, fostering direct interaction and building excitement.
- Network amplification: there are a lot of stakeholders in the event with amazing goodwill so we tapped into the network with ready-to-use branded messages and assets to make it as easy as possible to spread the word. This helped us get into the harder-to-each areas through fantastic organisations such as Aberdeen Foyer, TSIs ACVO & AVA, Denis Law Community Trust and Sport Aberdeen.
Some of the highlights
Making connections and answering questions were key to this project. It’s been 28 years since the last time Tall Ships were here, so no “rinse and repeat” option here.
One particularly successful experiment was holding a twice-weekly drop-in open Zoom call where anyone could dial in and ask any questions about the application process. Not only did we have a human face offering information and reassurance, it gave us a useful feedback loop for how our messaging was landing.
We also reconnected with some people involved in the previous visits, so a 1997 volunteer told her story in a short, snappy video, produced alongside ace video production specialists Signal.
We found others to share their memories and mementoes with the local media, and we interviewed previous sail trainees for the Tall Ships website and discovered how vivid the reflections remained, despite three decades having passed. Having human faces remembering the difference it made to their lives really seemed to resonate with our audience.
For young adventurers interested in sail trainee positions, Hoolet leveraged visually compelling video content on TikTok, showcasing the excitement and adventure of the Tall Ships experience.
And this was all made so much easier with such a strong and impactful brand, produced by Aspect: The Strategic Communications Experts. From videos to resource packs, posts to posters, we made sure that we made the most of having such an instantly recognisable look.
The results
Hoolet’s strategic communications campaign played a pivotal role in driving significant engagement and exceeding recruitment targets for The Tall Ships Races Aberdeen 2025.
The campaign’s success was evident in the overwhelming response:
Over 2,000 applications were received in total.
- 670 applications were submitted for sail trainee positions
- 1,389 applications were received from prospective volunteers
The demand meant that 230 sail trainees were eventually appointed alongside 400 highly motivated volunteers, split equally on gender as well as between the city and Aberdeenshire
The paid social campaigns achieved over 1.1million impressions
Engagement reached nearly 140,000 interactions (likes, comments, shares, etc.).
Website traffic from ads resulted in over 13,000 link clicks.
And as a legacy, the eye-catching and very human content produced could be used as the project move seamlessly into its next phase to attract thousands of visitors to the event.
Feedback
This campaign underscores the importance of a multi-faceted approach in achieving ambitious recruitment targets. By combining strategic planning, engaging content and data-driven optimisation, Hoolet successfully mobilised a community, setting the stage for a successful Tall Ships Races Aberdeen 2025.
Jordan Harkins, head of communications at Port of Aberdeen and chair of the marketing communications group for the Tall Ships event, said: “The sheer volume of applications we received is a testament to the effectiveness of Hoolet’s strategic approach.
“Their ability to connect with diverse audiences and drive engagement was crucial in achieving our recruitment goals.
“Their work has been very valuable to the success of the early stages of the Tall Ships Races Aberdeen 2025.
“Hoolet quickly became a value member of The Tall Ships team and consistently delivered above and beyond for the project.”
And as for us? We loved the whole experience … and were delighted to find out after the recruitment project was complete, Hoolet was retained for the rest of event.
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