Project: Vickery’s Voyages, This Morning, ITV1

Client: The Florida Keys and Key West

Date: 2006

Task: To bring positive messages about the Keys to a large audience to counteract the negative impressions following Hurricane Wilma’s impact on the island chain.

Implementation: We pitched a story idea to the This Morning production team to produce a one off Florida Keys special to be part of their cookery strand ‘Vickery’s Voyages’.  We organised and hosted a filming trip, fronted by the celebrity chef, Phil Vickery, to cover the variety of food experiences and vacation activities within Florida Keys & Key West.

Results: 12 minutes of airtime to an audience of 2 million viewers.  Valued at £450,000.

Unlocking the power of the small screen for the Florida Keys & Key West

Back in 2005, both the BBC and ITV stopped producing their flagship travel programmes removing the main route to screen and thus millions of viewers for every tourist destination in the world. Our task was to find a new route to screen for the Florida Keys and Key West to counteract negative impressions following Hurricane Wilma’s impact on the island chain. So we targeted the most popular daytime magazine programme in the country, This Morning, to seed the idea of producing a one off Florida Keys special to be part of the strand “Vickery’s Voyages”, fronted by the program’s chef, Phil Vickery.

Our pitch was accepted and we worked with the production team to create a filming itinerary and put all the arrangements in place, complicated by the fact the crew had to fly into Miami from St Lucia, where they were producing another film for the strand.  We worked with our trade contacts to secure Kuoni as  the tour operator sponsor for the project to cover flight costs and provide a vacation prize for the on air competition that would complement the strand’s broadcast.

The film included a variety of food experiences for Phil: fresh fish and stone crab claws harvested from the surrounding ocean: Key Lime Pie created by local chef and character Kermit at his store in Key West; and a restaurant that cooked the trout Phil had just caught.

In addition to the food experiences, we included a wide variety of vacation activities for Phil to try: a dolphin encounter; learning how to fish in the Florida Bay; witnessing the nightly sunset celebration in Mallory Square; a sunset sail; and exploring Hemingway House, the home of legendary literary giant Ernest Hemingway.  We even organised a helicopter for some overhead shots of Phil driving across Seven Mile Bridge.  In addition a special competition trail was filmed, featuring Hawks Cay Resort, the prize accommodation provider.

Filming took place in January 2006 and the crew were accompanied by Kate Burgess-Craddy who acted as local fixer, production assistant and driver.  This enabled a very productive relationship to develop with the team including the presenter, Phil Vickery.

The strand was extremely popular when transmitted on 20 February during the peak booking period, and the programme received very positive viewer feedback.  The strand achieved an audience of 2 million viewers and a total of 12 minutes airtime including the competition film and studio discussion, valued at £450,000.

For the Keys we have also worked with The Travel Channel, organising filming trips in June 2006 and September 2008.  A third trip took place in October 2009 to cover Fantasy Fest.

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