Connect, explore and celebrate being ‘Free Again’

After more than a year of the world being grounded, a new campaign is encouraging people to be ‘Free Again’ by following the call of their natural instinct and reclaiming the joy of connecting with others.

Leeds-based businesses travel specialist Ventur and creative agency StormBrands have teamed up to celebrate the lifting of restrictions in England on what has been dubbed Freedom Day. A dolphin splashing free from a billboard, ‘Free Again’ emphasises the innate need for living creatures to roam freely and the sheer elation of rediscovering this freedom after the last 16 months.

Hayley Collingswood, head of marketing said: “After partnering with StormBrands on our successful rebrand earlier this year, we wanted to collaborate on something which captured this sense of imminent freedom we’ve all felt in the lead up to today. Being ‘free again’ embodies everything we’ve been yearning for; it’s like we’re being released back into the wild.”
Ventur is inviting Yorkshire people and businesses to share its ‘Free Again’ campaign across social media to help celebrate the return to connecting freely in person.

“The last year has taught us that it’s human instinct to feel free – to travel and connect with others, whether that’s seeing loved ones, daily interactions we took for granted or planning business trips and holidays. With this campaign we’re taking a stand that it’s time to celebrate that joy again and we would love for others to join us,” added Hayley.

From 4am today, double vaccinated UK travellers can return to England, Scotland and Wales from amber list countries without the need for quarantine, offering the same freedom as the green list.

Hayley said: “While travel isn’t going to be the same for a little while, Freedom Day marks a step in the right direction and the recent upturn we’ve seen in customers wanting to re-start their organisations’ travel programmes or enquire about holiday destinations, shows just how long-awaited this is. What’s been clear is not everything can be done via a screen; our research found that 45% of senior businesspeople in the UK have attributed a loss in profits and revenue directly to the lack of business travel in the last year, while the demand for holidays speaks for itself.”

Tony Coppin, executive creative director at StormBrands, said: “After a year of lockdowns, the one thing we can all relate to is the need to feel and be free. The campaign was built to address the human and animal instinct of the business community who have been waiting, restlessly wondering how, when and if they’ll be allowed to travel once again. We wanted to create something bold which celebrated the instinctive joy of travel and freedom.”

Abby Penston, CEO of Focus Travel Partnership of which Ventur is a partner, said: “Removing the travel restrictions and additional health testing requirements in a sustainable way frees up safe and responsible business travel. We know there is a huge amount of pent-up demand for face-to-face meetings, with many saying that they feel that travel will be as or more important to their businesses in the future. This is a great campaign that highlights how important travel is to both our work and wellbeing.”