The British Business Embassy
Lancaster House
London 2012
The British Business Embassy hosted the Prime Minister’s Business Programme the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. A programme of 18 international summits were held throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games in a refitted Lancaster House, to showcase the best of British design including a temporary extension to accommodate the number of guests.
Christine Losecaat was Creative and Programme Director
Christine Losecaat worked with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Department for Business and UK Trade & Investment’s Olympic Legacy and Olympic Delivery Units to conceive and deliver the UK’s international business programme and economic legacy piece during the London 2012 Games. The benefit to the UK economy attributed to the programme to date stands at £15bn.
Specifically, Christine developed the concept and curated the programme content of the biggest series of trade and investment conferences ever hosted by any government. These took place at the British Business Embassy at Lancaster House throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
A highlight of the 6 week programme was the Creative Reception at The Royal Academy attended by both the Prime Minister and the Duchess of Cambridge.
The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor, Business Secretary, Foreign Secretary and in total 41ministers welcomed over 4,000 business leaders and global figures, including over half of the FTSE 100 companies and hundreds of international buyers, investors and policy makers, to the series of global business summits at the British Business Embassy.
The programme of events at Lancaster House exceeded expectations in terms of media coverage, customer satisfaction and reach.
14 days of trade and investment conferences were held under the British Business Embassy banner, starting with the Global Investment Conference (26 July) and ending with a Global Sports Breakfast (12 August) at City Hall. In between there were country days devoted to China and Brazil and ten Sector Summits. The Paralympic programme covered 4 days, an Assistive Technologies Summit, the Global Sports Summit including the signing of the Host2Host agreement with the City of Taipei and a two-day summit led by the International Paralympic Committee.
Over 4,000 VIP delegates and over 410 speakers came through the doors of Lancaster House. Feedback from delegates was positive across the spread of summits, showing over 95% satisfaction with the events, and 80% reporting an improvement in their perception of the UK as a place to do business.
In total, over half the Cabinet attended at least one event. The Prime Minister attended four of the Summits, with the Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor, Business Secretary and Foreign Secretary not far behind. Ministers were able to use this as an opportunity to reinforce UK government messages through speeches and by hosting bi-laterals. 41 Ministers made 150 visits and over 50 speeches.
Media coverage was built on a big bang start around the Global Investment Conference and the Creative Reception at the Royal Academy of Arts, but underpinned by a core programme for business media multipliers, sector and international media. Over 300 media interviews were carried by outlets including Sky News, BBC and BBC World, CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, Channel 4, ITN, CNTV, Al Jazeera, Forbes India, Fuji TV, and the Wall Street Journal. Headlines were eye catching from the FT’s “London Calling”, to the Evening Standard’s “Cool Britannia 2.0”.
Coverage exceeded £3.5 million in media value equivalent in the UK alone, and received over 100 million internet impressions.
Lancaster House was completely redesigned to be transformed into the British Business Embassy with a new creative look and feel throughout the House including installations, furniture, artwork and product placement, showcasing the best of British design.
The British Business Embassy was built on Little Dipper’s highly successful concept of the London Design Embassy, conceived in 2008.