GREAT campaign in Bolivia 2013
British Embassy La Paz organised various GREAT campaign events in October and November, focusing on Food, Heritage, Creativity and Music.
British week at Ketal supermarket in La Paz, highlighting the wide range of British products available.
FOOD IS GREAT
The Embassy partnered with leading supermarket chain Ketal to organise a “British Week” within their main store. “Food is GREAT” banners were prominently displayed, together with a wide range of British food and drink products available to Bolivian consumers.
HM Ambassador Ross Denny and Ketal’s Managing Director hosted a well attended reception to open the week, which concluded with live cooking demonstrations using British food products.
Building on the popularity of British tea, Ambassador Denny hosted “Tea Time La Paz” at the Residence with Ketal, attended by several local celebrity TV presenters and journalists. A demonstration and explanation of the origins of the English afternoon tea tradition, and how to prepare tea “the English way” was well received, and this was repeated on a national TV breakfast programme.
HERITAGE IS GREAT
In 1948 the British Community in La Paz donated a clock tower to the City of La Paz, fondly referred to as the “La Paz Big Ben” as the clock mechanism is British and the bell chime is the same as the London bell.
In October the Embassy held an event with the municipality of La Paz, attended by members of the British community to celebrate the tower’s 65th anniversary. Ambassador Denny presented the Municipality’s director for culture with a crystal replica of the London Big Ben as a token of the links between the two cities.
The Embassy and the Municipality organised a competition inviting photographers and artists to produce paintings and collage photographs depicting both the clock tower in La Paz and Big Ben in London. Leaflets with the history of Big Ben and the La Paz tower clock were distributed at various events organised by the Municipality, including a cultural fair where the Embassy manned a GREAT stand fielding questions about aspects of Britain.
The finale of the clock tower events was a video mapping event. GREAT images including the Union Flag were displayed prominently over the 13 m high tower.
Video mapping over the clock tower donated by the British community to the city of La Paz in 1948
CREATIVITY IS GREAT
Building on the CutOutFest in Mexico, which had Britain as the guest country, British Embassy La Paz supported the itinerant screening of short films festival in La Paz, including a number of British films. During the four day festival over 800 university students, including arts, design and film students attended with everyone seeing the film “GREAT” featuring Paul Smith at the start of each evening’s showing.
MUSIC IS GREAT
The World Bank and the British Embassy co-sponsored an event fusing classical and electronic music. The concert was held in the Central Bank auditorium with an audience of over 800. The programme included plays by British composer Peter Warlock, and iconic images of Britain were displayed on video mapping. “Music is GREAT” branding was also displayed at four well attended concerts by local band “Liverpool” playing The Beatles.