Blue Peter, White House visits and medieval knights - Washington's former PR guru recalls how he helped put the new town on the map - video Dailymotion

Sunderland Echo

Washington New Town's head of public relations David Warden recalls the elaborate promotional campaigns to attract residents and businesses to the town.

Transcript

00:00 Okay, I understand one of your key roles was promoting Washington New Town, to prospect

00:05 that people would come and live here and businesses and that sort of thing.

00:08 Just tell me about some of the campaigns which you ran at the time.

00:12 Right, well we had to create a picture of what attractions there were for people to

00:18 come to Washington and one of the ways of doing that was by advertising in the press,

00:24 press releases, a lot of the usual stuff and we were also very heavily involved in exhibitions

00:30 both in the UK and in Europe.

00:33 We also had a very big marketing campaign that took part in America, mostly on the West

00:40 Coast.

00:41 But the advertising side of things, we tried to create a look that stood out amongst the

00:47 crowd in other advertising and we settled on using the Code of Arms of Washington and

00:54 it was probably the best thing we ever did because it stood out like a sore thumb.

00:58 Being a Code of Arms sort of gives you a better idea of somewhere, a bit posher if you like,

01:06 but more positive than just a straightforward advert.

01:09 I understand you also went and visited the White House on a number of occasions, including

01:13 taking a birthday card?

01:15 This is true.

01:16 We had a competition to design a birthday card for George Washington's 250th birthday

01:23 and the winner and his mum and dad, along with the BBC film crew, we took to America

01:29 to present the prize-winning card to the White House.

01:34 It was handed in on the steps of the White House portico, which everybody's seen in

01:38 the movies.

01:39 We were met by a representative of the President's Press Department.

01:44 Two days later, Gary, his mum and dad and myself were invited to lunch in a senior mess

01:50 in the White House.

01:51 To this day, I remember Gary having a knickerbocker glory that would have fed three people.

01:58 What's the best thing for you about living in Washington?

02:00 The best thing about living in Washington is I feel the team and at its very most, there

02:08 was about 400 of us in total, created a new town with a heart.

02:14 I believe that this heart is still there, beating very strongly.

02:19 It's certainly a new town that other people have judged other new towns by because we

02:28 got more right than we got wrong.

02:31 The numbering system, for instance.

02:32 But apart from that, we kept our identity by building a new town around the older villages,

02:39 some of which you can still see today.

02:41 The F Pit Museum, for instance, the Wheel at Albany.

02:45 But there's the memories of the people, parents and grandparents.

02:49 Oh, I remember back in the day when the F Pit was open or when this pit and so on was

02:55 open.

02:56 That's still a very strong part of Washington's tradition.

Blue Peter, White House visits and medieval knights - Washington's former PR guru recalls how he helped put the new town on the map

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