Shaping up socials for Bristol’s most famous ship!
Bringing Halloween and Sabrina Carpenter to the high seas.
SS Great Britain
As our hometown, and arguably one of the best cities in the world, Bristol has always been a huge love for us here at Duchess. So, whilst we love getting stuck into projects outside of the city, when a brief as iconically ‘Bristol’ as this one landed on our desks, it was hard not to get a little overexcited.
Towards the end of 2025 the team at Bristol’s famous SS Great Britain got in touch, looking for content creation support around some upcoming campaigns.
The team behind this Victorian-era revolutionary steamship turned world-class museum and Bristol’s No.1 Visitor Attraction (TripAdvisor 2025) approached us to come aboard and create some fresh social media content that would capture the ship's dramatic, atmospheric character and translate it into something that would resonate with modern audiences online.
The task was clear: create a bank of short-form video content that could be rolled out across their social platforms using the Halloween season to drive visibility, engagement, and ultimately, event attendees.
What they needed
What we did
Before we even set foot on deck, we threw ourselves into research, identifying the formats, sounds and styles that were performing best on short-form video at the time. Truth be told as native users of most platforms, this was a lot of us passing our phones around the desk saying ‘have you seen this one?’. After agreeing on our favourites and making sure everything was covered, it was time to create the shot list. Each piece of content was planned in detail; the shots, the spots and the props we needed to bring this plan to reality before sending it over to the client for approval.
Then came the fun part - shoot day. We spent eight hours running up and down the decks of the SS Great Britain like a Victorian bosun, weaving through tourists and bringing every single idea to life.
We made the most of the ship's moody Victorian architecture, dim lighting and historic atmosphere, everything that makes the SS Great Britain such a naturally brilliant Halloween backdrop. I think it’s important to note that we also convinced a certain top-hatted character to lip sync to Sabrina Carpenter and Mariah Carey.
Did we get our bearings on a 322-foot Victorian steamship? Absolutely not. Did we get the content? One hundred percent.
Kate Chaffey, Marketing & Campaigns Manager
I had the pleasure of working with Duchess during a transitional period when we were between in-house content creators. Each member of the team is super friendly, creative and brought so much passion to our project and workplace. They seamlessly filled the gap in our marketing team, keeping the content on our feed engaging, professional and joyful.
SS Great Britain
Most of the content has been rolled out across SS Great Britain's social platforms, with a few evergreen videos being kept in their back pocket, and the results were nothing short of incredible. The first three videos that went live delivered:
- 232.4k views,
- 17,860 likes,
- 237 comments and
- 1,061 shares.
Beyond the metrics, this project was a real treat for the team at Duchess. A chance to put all of our hours spent chronically online towards creating great content for a Bristol heritage brand and keeping a 180-year-old ship feeling genuinely exciting and of-the-moment. It's the kind of work that makes our jobs pretty special.