Chorley firm helps primary school become Christmas number one contender
Iced Graphics, of Chorley, has been generously supporting one of its valued customers, a small primary school Flakefleet in Fleetwood who are currently defying the odds and on track to mounting a serious challenge to the coveted Christmas top spot this year![embed]https://www.facebook.com/flakefleet/videos/303265363730993/[/embed]
Providing marketing support, PR, branding, album, merchandise, poster and campaign bus livery artwork and a dedicated website all completely free of charge.The campaign has seen the school go from 100/1 outsiders to 4/1 third favourites for the Christmas number one spot.
Kev Hoyle, director, explains: “We have been working with Flakefleet primary school over the last 1.5 years designing various print jobs and a custom CMS website. Once we heard about their Light Up Christmas Number One #daretodream campaign we knew we wanted to be involved; not only is it for a good cause (the Alzheimers Society) but it has a great message to all children and adults; if you can dream it, anything is possible!“Let’s face it everyone loves an underdog story! From personal experience this has been supporting BWFC through the White Hot years and most recently seeing Chorley FC come up against Doncaster (and very nearly defeat them at home). It would be an amazing achievement for the school to reach the top 10 and prove that it isn’t about money, TV, corporate backing, celebrity singers (although many have got behind the campaign) but having a dream, determination, lots of hard work and knocking on a thousand doors until one opens.”
“We really hope that our fellow Iced clients and residents of the North West will get behind the cause and purchase the Light Up single. It is only 59p and available to pre-order on three platforms (I Tunes, Amazon and Google Play); please help get these children get to Number One! We have been proud to be able to support them by offering our design, web and print services for free and see our work on I Tunes, Amazon, Google Play, ITV, BBC and printed in many publications including the Mail, Mirror and Sun newspapers”.“It’s been a great year for Iced and we wish you all the most wonderful Christmas; hopefully with Flakefleet reaching the top 10 it will be the icing on the ‘Christmas’ cake!”
The Back Story
In an assembly, Dave McPartlin, headteacher, challenged children to share their dreams and one plucky child explained that they would like to be a popstar with a number one hit. And so, a dream was born!Staff got together and hatched a plan to take on the biggest number one of the year – Christmas! They spread the word and managed to find music producers, engineers and recording studios who were all willing to offer their services free of charge to help make the impossible a reality. Iced kindly offered to help with marketing and design and have helped create a strong visual campaign.
The school got about coming up with a message for their Christmas hit and with the help of the children decided to encourage people to give the gift of time this Christmas and make memories. Staff and children submitted ideas and lyrics for the song and teachers Alice Bryze, Hayley Wild and a couple of talented music producers had the challenge of pulling it all together.Recording was carried out at a professional studio at Fleetwood High School and facilities were also set up at school to record all children and staff singing their parts. And so, the song was born.
They came up with the idea of shooting the pop video with residents from the local care home (shot on the Heads I phone and edited by him!), who they enjoy a close relationship with.The residents visit school weekly and vice versa; the children and elderly residents love meeting up and their interactions are truly heart-warming. They then set about taking out the residents with some of their children, over three days, for an incredible time of fun and laughter.
Please watch the video and you’ll see what a special time it was, it will have you crying and smiling. Dorothy Billington, one of the stars of the video who is 92 and sadly a Dementia sufferer said: “It was her best day ever.”RED CARPET LAUNCH
The video received a red-carpet premiere at the glitzy Blackpool Winter Gardens Opera House, who supplied their staff and theatre for free, as they also believed in the dream. 500 children were bussed from nearby Fleetwood and with only a week’s notice, the staff and children came up with a show to be proud of, watched on by over 500 parents and members of the public who came along to cheer them on.MEDIA INTEREST
There has been a huge amount of media interest including: ITN News at Ten, BBC Radio 5, ITV Granada Reports, BBC North West, CBBC Newsround, Radio Lancashire, Wave FM, the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, Blackpool Gazette and the TES… BBC North West: https://bit.ly/2FUZ0vs Blackpool Gazette: https://bit.ly/2SmXDH5 ITN News: https://bit.ly/2G8LYKQ Newsround: https://bit.ly/2E7gwef TES: https://bit.ly/2FUZ6TQ+ The Sun: https://bit.ly/2DSXEPbCELEBRITY FOLLOWERS
Following on from the success of the premiere, social media started to go a little crazy with lots of celebrity backing including… Chris Evans, Philip Schofield, Alan Sugar, Frank Bruno, Carol Vorderman, Jason Manford, Sir Chris Hoy, Fearne Cotton, Jeremy Corbyn, Matt Dawson, KT Tunstall, Vicky McClure, Alfie Boe, Bobby Ball, Coleen Nolan, Coronation Street and many, many more…CAMPAIGN BUS
Flakefleet have a campaign headquarters in school, where parents and volunteers have joined forces to support them in getting their song heard far and wide. They also have a dedicated campaign website, branded merchandise and a branded Campaign Bus, all designed by Iced, which has already toured Manchester, Liverpool and London, to help get the word out there that these plucky kids are going after the Christmas Number One.A sponsored airplane will be flying across the North West next weekend and flyers are being distributed with hundreds of posters too – all of which are sponsored by local companies and also designed by Iced.
