Happy New Year! Hope you all enjoyed the end to 2016. It was our best year yet and now in 2017 we have something huge to announce. It is our ten-year anniversary! Back in 2007, Hippo Motor Group was created by Richard and Tom Preston through a father-son partnership from a family that has been trading in the area since 1906.
Our crowning glory was in 2013 when we opened our custom-built showroom, at Trident Park in Blackburn, designed to house our most beautiful cars and allow our customers to come in and look around them or discuss a new lease vehicle.
Last year was another milestone for us with the opening of our second site on Blakewater Road. Our new building features our state of the art Prep Centre, where each car is brought in and checked to ensure it is in the correct condition before sending it out to our customers. As we enter our tenth year, we are constantly bringing in new brilliant people to work for us and our customers. We now have over 80 highly dedicated members of staff working in both our showroom and prep centre.
We succeeded in raising thousands of pounds for our various charities through our quarterly commitment where we donated an agreed sum for each car we lease or sell to one of our selected charities. Hippo Motor Group raised over £2400, split between Children in Need, Cancer Help Preston, Milly’s Smiles and Spacious Place. Our staff also took part in Jeans for Genes and MacMillan coffee mornings.
In early December, we launched our brand-new Hippo Leasing website, designed to offer our customers better deals and a better website experience with some brilliant new features. This year, we are launching new websites for Hippo Motor Finance and Zero Deposit Car Leasing.
Now in 2017, we have so much planned to celebrate our past successful decade. We are launching our ten-year anniversary with our ten pledges we wish to achieve, contribute towards or present.
Firstly we are rewarding both customers and staff with events, champagne and more with our Prime Experience suite at Manchester Arena. The suite includes a private entrance, waiter service, a private bar and luxury seating to enjoy the performances in premium comfort. Through our sweepstake our customers have a chance to be chosen and to enjoy some of the amazing acts that will be performing this year, including Drake, Take That and Russell Howard, plus many more.
January sees us conclude our Road Safety Campaign where Hugo the Hippo visited schools around Lancashire, delivering Road Safety Packs to parents, teachers and children. Our aim was to raise awareness about road safety for young children as we know how dangerous cars can be if people are not careful. When the campaign has ended, Hugo will have travelled well over 100 miles around Lancashire, visiting 11 schools.
We also have a variety of special events throughout the year including some thrown by us and some by others through our sponsorship and support. Hippo Motor Group is one of the main sponsors for The Butterfly Ball, an independent charity event that raises money for The Prince’s Trust.
We are also hosting the Supercar Meet up in May. This is an event where the members of Supercar Driver magazine and our customers, based in Lancashire have a day out driving in their varied selection of supercars before attending an event at our main showroom. It promises to be a day of food, drink and fast cars.
We also have a variety of campaigns planned that will run throughout the year. These campaigns will offer our customers rewards and deals allowing them to get the best car for them for the right deal. We will have more details on that as the year goes along.
Hippo Motor Group also have a very special announcement to make in the coming months for one of our biggest events of the year. Keep checking back with us in the coming months to make sure you don’t miss out.
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