CASE STUDY: B2C Campaign Amplifies Awareness for Milestone Cultural Festival

THE CHALLENGE

The Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival (CICF), a long-standing tradition celebrating Irish heritage through music, dance and food, reached a major milestone with its 40^th anniversary. What began as a small local gathering has grown into a nationally recognized cultural experience, drawing thousands of attendees each year and serving as a cornerstone of Cleveland’s summer festival season.

As the organization prepared to celebrate four decades of Irish culture, it faced a key challenge: how to elevate awareness of the festival, strengthen engagement with loyal attendees, and attract new audiences—all while honoring the legacy that made the event so meaningful to the community.

To achieve this, CICF needed a consumer-focused marketing campaign that would stand out from a crowded summer events roster, highlight the significance of its 40^th anniversary, and drive ticket sales and attendance. The organization partnered with Roopco on an integrated B2C campaign that would amplify event visibility and position the 40^th anniversary as a must-attend regional experience.

THE SOLUTION

Roopco created and executed a multi-channel B2C marketing campaign designed to build excitement and drive attendance across key audiences, including music fans, families and cultural enthusiasts.

The campaign began with a research and planning phase, which involved a comprehensive audit of CICF’s digital presence, promotional materials and historical media coverage. This initial phase identified opportunities to streamline event messaging, improve brand consistency, and strengthen emotional connection with key audiences. Roopco also defined key audience segments and analyzed competing regional festivals to inform the overall strategy and positioning.

At the core of the campaign was a focus on storytelling and celebration, leveraging the festival’s four-decade legacy as a central theme. Messaging highlighted CICF’s rich history, cultural authenticity and evolving relevance, positioning the event as both a cherished tradition and a fun, modern experience.

Roopco then executed a fully integrated campaign across multiple channels:

• Digital Advertising & Social Media: A targeted Meta ad campaign across Facebook and Instagram promoted key festival experiences, such as live music, dance performances, family-friendly activities and anniversary highlights. Creative assets such as video reels, carousel posts and static visuals were designed to maximize engagement and drive traffic to ticket platforms. Organic social content followed a structured calendar, featuring performer spotlights, countdowns, audience engagement posts and informational updates to build excitement.
• Traditional Media: To expand reach beyond digital audiences, Roopco coordinated a regional radio campaign featuring advertisements and ticket giveaways across leading stations. Television advertising and morning show appearances further amplified visibility, with in-studio interviews, live demonstrations and feature segments showcasing the festival’s unique offerings and answering common attendee questions.
• Out-of-Home Advertising: High-impact billboard placements along major commuter corridors in Northeast Ohio generated strong local awareness in the weeks leading up to the festival. Bold visuals and clear messaging emphasized the milestone anniversary and invited audiences to take part in the celebration.
• Earned Media Outreach: Roopco executed targeted media outreach, pitching the 40^th anniversary angle to local outlets and securing coverage across print, digital and broadcast media. Stories highlighted the festival’s rich history, entertainment lineup and cultural significance, helping to reinforce its position as a premier regional event.

Together, these efforts created a cohesive, high-impact campaign that reached audiences across multiple touchpoints, which maximized awareness, engagement and anticipation for the festival.

THE RESULTS

The B2B marketing campaign delivered strong performance across all channels, significantly increasing visibility, engagement and attendance for the Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival.

Digital efforts produced substantial gains, with social media reach increasing by more than 900% on Facebook and more than 100% on Instagram, while engagement, clicks and follower growth all saw meaningful improvement. Paid social campaigns also generated strong engagement rates and drove consistent traffic to the festival’s ticketing platforms to help boost sales.

Media outreach efforts also exceeded expectations, with earned media placements increasing by approximately 75% year-over-year and overall media reach growing by more than 150%. Coverage across leading local news outlets, digital platforms and broadcast segments helped position the festival as a marquee summer event and reinforced its cultural significance in Northeast Ohio.

Traditional media further expanded campaign reach, with radio, television and billboard placements delivering millions of impressions across Northeast Ohio. Television appearances and live segments provided high-visibility opportunities to showcase the festival experience to a broad audience.

Most importantly, the increased awareness and engagement translated into measurable attendance growth, with the festival seeing a double-digit percentage increase in attendance. This growth reflected the campaign’s success in attracting both returning attendees and new audiences.