Over 1,400 people take part in artwork to show their love for Hull

Posted on Tags: Social Media, Strawberry Academy

Strawberry’s Young Enterprise team has recently hung a unique social media artwork that contains over 1,400 Facebook profile pictures of people that have declared their love for Hull. The artwork, which will be displayed in The Deep throughout January, was designed to raise funds for Young Enterprise Yorkshire & Humber as part of the apprentice-style competition ‘who wants to be an entrepreneur?’. 10 local companies at the heart of Hull sponsored the artwork, which is the first of its kind in the region, and raised a grand total of £1375 for the charity.

It was free for people to take part in the artwork and one lucky person featured will win an iPod touch. The social media campaign caught people’s attention as they shared what they love about Hull on Facebook and Twitter. The idea behind the ‘Love Hull’ campaign was to promote a positive image of the city and it has been a great success, as Strawberry’s PR Manager and member of the Love Hull team explains:

“We are delighted with the response we received to the Love Hull campaign. Over 1,400 people liked our Facebook page so they could be featured in the artwork and we were retweeted by lots of local high profile tweeters including John Prescott, Richard Garcia and Peter Levy, along with lots of local businesses. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our sponsors: Signs Express, Ultralets, One Stop Golf, Rix, GKD, BSC Solutions, MKM, 543 Dental Centre, Eltherington Group, Hanson Electrical and Airkool. A special thank you also goes out to The Deep for giving us a great location to hang the picture.

“As part of the ‘who wants to be an entrepreneur?’ competition we were told that we must raise £1000 for the charity to make it to the next round by working to the brief ‘grand designs’. We decided to create a grand design that featured over 1,000 people and knew the focus of the artwork should be about how great Hull is. We’ve been hit hard by the recession and don’t always get treated fairly by the national press so we thought it would be a good opportunity to challenge some misconceptions about Hull.

“Lots of people have shared what they love about Hull with us – from their favourite places such as High Street, Hessle Road and the Marina, to their top places to eat out. However, it was widely agreed that it’s the people that makes Hull great – which is also why we wanted to feature over 1,000 local people in our artwork!”

The artwork can be found and viewed for free next to the ground floor lifts at The Deep. For more information about the campaign or to share what you love about Hull, visit www.facebook.com/lovehull.