Wednesday, January 21, 2015

London’s Paddington Trail Raises Over $1.4 million for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

LONDON -- During the period leading up to Christmas, London was taken over by life-sized statues of the world’s favorite furry Peruvian explorer designed by a host of celebrities and artists as part of The Paddington Trail, sponsored by Barclaycard. STUDIOCANAL, VisitLondon.com and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) have revealed that the public art installation created to mark the release of PADDINGTON in cinemas has raised over $1.4 million for the NSPCC’s ChildLine service.

Launched on November 4, The Paddington Trail featured statues designed by celebrities and artists including Kate Moss, Jonathan Ross, Marc Quinn, Take That, Hugh Bonneville, Michael Sheen and Emma Watson, as well as Paddington’s fellow adventurer, Bear Grylls. The first 15 of these unique artworks were auctioned in December at an event at Christie’s hosted by David Heyman, producer of PADDINGTON, and his wife Rose, both of whom are longstanding supporters of the charity. The live auction, which also featured pieces of art including a Paddington-inspired piece by Tracey Emin, raised over $757,000 for the NSPCC.

Other statues were auctioned online by Christie’s, giving people around the world the chance to own a piece of The Paddington Trail. The auction attracted heated bidding with London Mayor Boris Johnson’s ”Bear of London” eventually going to a bidder in East Asia for $48,000. Other favourites were Liam Gallagher’s “Parka Paddington” and Chelsea FC’s “The Special One”, both of which went for $19,700. In addition, residents of the town of Fleet in Hampshire were successful in their bid to own a piece of The Paddington Trail, securing Ant & Dec’s “Bear Humbug” following a crowd-funding campaign supported by the local community.

While The Paddington Trail was live, Mayor Boris Johnson’s “Bear of London” was the third most popular, behind athlete David Beckham’s “Golden Paws” and actor Benedict Cumberbatch’s “Sherlock Bear” which was the most visited profile on www.visitlondon.com/paddington*. And as Paddington fever hit London, social media was buzzing with mentions of #PaddingtonTrail, with the campaign reaching over 37.5 million Twitter accounts – more than the population of Peru. A map of The Paddington Trail was downloaded over 90,000 times, and pages on the microsite were viewed over 2.2 million times, demonstrating the Trail’s popularity.

The money raised will help trained ChildLine volunteers provide advice and support to children 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, some of whom are going through the toughest times of their lives. The money will also help continue to modernize the ChildLine service to reflect how children now prefer to get in touch.

For those visitors to London who enjoyed exploring The Paddington Trail and would like to support the NSPCC, text BEAR to 70744 to donate $6 and help answer a call to ChildLine.

Intrepid explorers who took part in The Paddington Trail can download an exclusive certificate from www.visitlondon.com/paddington

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