Jones Bar Group had chosen Nottingham for its sixth Roxy Ball Room – a games bar featuring table tennis, pool, karaoke booths and much more.  

This was to be its first location in the Midlands - but we knew that brand awareness in other cities would not transfer automatically to the competitive Nottingham hospitality scene. 

We were tasked with building that brand awareness from scratch while making sure a VIP-filled launch generated long-tail content that would translate to bookings.  

Through stakeholder interviews, we quickly identified that the Roxy business model thrives on group bookings and would be central to stability and growth in a new location.  

Our insights also highlighted that Nottingham city centre’s working professionals had a limited choice for group nights out that didn’t simply target students, despite having more disposable income and wanting to enjoy a fun night out with colleagues. 

Roxy’s city centre address was key to us building a strategy that focused on working professionals, targeting them directly through office ‘takeovers’.

Taking learnings from previous hospitality launches in Nottingham including Bistrot Pierre, The Alchemist and Penny Lane, we knew we could maximise traction by running two audience-focused launches rather than one general event.  

We began with a VIP night built for press coverage and content creation, with Olympic table tennis player Kelly Sibley featured among the 200 guests that consisted of the press, influencers and community groups. We built on this initial buzz to create demand with a public launch providing a final word-of-mouth boost that ensured bookings from day one. 

Roxy's core audience age skews 21-35, but when targeting group bookings, we recognised that the person organising the activity is often not the one who suggested it. 

So, we needed a plan that would reach both. This meant broad awareness content online and in the media for the wider Nottingham audience, and tighter targeting of office workers by physically visiting city centre businesses to reach the people making the arrangements face-to-face. 

A launch video was created and edited to suit each channel rather than posting it once in a single format. We put a spotlight on the different offering that Roxy Ball Room was bringing to Nottingham rather than solely focusing on the opening date, to ensure the client could use the content both in the run-up to and after the launch.  

The result was a launch with real buzz - and a VIP room that was booked up every Friday for the rest of the year.