blowUP media UK’s 166 sq.m. poster site in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens created a social media sensation last week as the Louis Van Gaal ‘Welcome to Vanchester’ poster from Betfair reached 2.9m Twitter users within two hours of its appearance on Monday August 11th.
It trended in sixth position on Twitter in the UK for five and a half hours while whizzing around the world via Twitter and other social media sites.
It also created headlines in the UK and Europe, being prominently featured in many newspapers including the MailOnline, Mirror Online and Sun+ in the UK and De Telegraaf in the Netherlands.
At least three of the tweets received more than 500 retweets with many others scoring over 200. Tweets were tracked from over 1500 locations with the most tweets coming from (in order) the UK, Indonesia, Spain, Netherlands, France, Germany, UAE and Thailand.
The Betfair PR activation played on the famous ‘Welcome to Manchester’ poster featuring footballer Carlos Tevez that Man United’s ‘noisy neighbours’ ran in 2009.
blowUP media UK’s sales director Aimee McKay says, “The extraordinary social media buzz around Betfair’s ‘Welcome to Vanchester’ sign shows how premium Giant Posters in key city centre locations get people talking - in this case all over the world.
“Through Twitter and other social media ‘Welcome to Vanchester’ may have become the most-viewed poster in history.”
Harry Phillips, consumer PR manager of Betfair, adds, "We are all about excitement at Betfair. Louis Van Gaal's arrival in the Premiership certainly brings that. United struggled last season but Van Gaal has given them a real lift and we wanted to celebrate what he will bring to the Premier League. He's 5/2 to be manager of the month in August. The question is, will he have the same effect as when Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho first took the league by storm?"
