The GREAT campaign

20 September 2012

The aim of the GREAT campaign is to maximise the economic potential of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and promote the UK's assets around the world between 2012- 2015. 

 
 
 
Promoting the UK’s strengths in English, education and culture
  • The campaign is helping us raise awareness of the UK’s cultural and educational assets. This awareness helps us create more international opportunities for UK universities and cultural bodies.
  • We are using the GREAT campaign in our UK education promotion work to increase the profile and reputation of the UK, encourage students to study in the UK and extend scholarship programmes in India and Brazil.
  • We are using the GREAT campaign to help promote the teaching and learning of English worldwide, and to bring the UK to life, for example through stimulus materials on the TeachingEnglish and LearnEnglish websites. 
Working in partnership with the UK government 
  • It is GREAT that the UK government is funding a campaign to showcase the UK as a world-class destination for business, investment and tourism – this helps our work for the UK in English, the arts and education. 
  • The UK government is providing £2.5m to help the British Council contribute fully to the campaign through launches, events, education promotion and GREAT English language resources.
  • The UK government is putting in £1m to support British Council GREAT Jubilee scholarships for students from India to study in the UK
FACTS
 
The GREAT campaign is focused on 17 key cities in ten places: USA, Germany, France, India, China/Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Australia. It also has global reach through GREAT posters and materials on display in British Council offices and teaching centres worldwide.
The high level objective is a measurable and sustainable increase in revenue from tourism, trade and investment to the UK: 4.6m extra visitors to the UK and £1bn of inward investment. More generally the aim is to invite the world to take a fresh look at everything that the UK has to offer.
 
The campaign uses a combination of press, posters, TV, radio, digital channels, cinema, PR and partnerships.  It also includes launch events attended by ministers and UK and local celebrities as well as the integration of GREAT into ongoing activity/events of relevant government departments and partner organisations.
 
The campaign focuses on specific UK strengths: entrepreneurship, knowledge, creativity, culture, green, music, heritage, countryside, sport, innovation, shopping. The British Council has added two further areas of focus: English and literature.