20.04.2005
ELLEN MACARTHUR SOLO ROUND THE WORLD RECORD:
A RECORD BREAKING PROJECT IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE
Ellen MacArthur’s record breaking voyager around the planet was in itself an extraordinary sporting achievement. Offshore yacht racing is a mechanical sport, with sophisticated and hi-tech racing boats being the tool of the professional sailor and it exists solely by virtue of commercial sponsorship. The latest Ellen MacArthur B&Q/Castorama sponsored campaign has broken more than just on the water records, demonstrating the immense value of a sport that provides excellent uncluttered branding opportunities, a positive natural image and the potential to engage indexstream worldwide audiences – as well as internal teams.
KEY RECORD BREAKING FIGURES
4 minutes national news in the USA on ABC, CNN and NBC (OC Group data)
34 million TV viewers watched the finish in Germany (KK)
2 prime time terrestial documentaries broadcasted in the UK - ITV and BBC1
More than 3000 press articles from more than 20 countries
Interest in sailing doubled to 20% (Ipsos UK)
Ipsos research shows a staggering 57% brand association for B&Q (the best
Premier League football shirt sponsorship scores about 26%).
The official website had over 700,000 unique visitors on the finish day, and over 3 million in total over the 71 days
RECORD BREAKING QUOTES
“Ellen MacArthur’s successful ‘Solo Round The World Record’ has launched both her and the B&Q sponsorship into the stratosphere in terms of public awareness. Awareness of Ellen grew from an already impressive 70% in … to 86%. This degree of cross age & gender awareness is remarkable … and one would expect put her on the same sort of playing field as people like Tony Blair & David Beckham.”
IPSOS UK
“We monitor hundreds of sponsorships and this is one of the highest spontaneous awareness figures I have even seen.”
Dan Hopper – Research Manager - IPSOS UK
"Media return was unprecedented, but what also makes it a real success for us is the empathy between Ellen and B&Q: she represents our philosophy of team work, motivation and goal setting."
David Roth - Marketing Director B&Q
“The re-branding of Ellen’s boat from the generic Kingfisher brand to B&Q has been an incredible success.”
“Spontaneous awareness of the B&Q sponsorship was 57% in GB and 62% after prompting.”
“These are extremely high levels of awareness, far higher for instance than any Premiership Shirt sponsor (where the top sponsors obtain c20-25% spontaneous awareness) can achieve.”
IPSOS UK
“The branding and positioning of signage has been outstanding and work with the media has also been cleverly planned and skillfully managed … The whole package added up to one of the most successful marketing communication campaigns in recent memory… There will not be a marketing director in the country who would not be wishing that it were his brand… ”
Nigel Currie – Director of GEM Group and Chairman of the European Sponsorship Association (ESA)
“The winner of the Hollis Sponsorship Personality of the Year (2005) is B&Q Marketing Director David Roth… the chain’s sponsorship of Ellen MacArthur has been hailed as one of the most successful sponsorship of recent years, it exploited every marketing and media opportunity, resulting in unprecedented levels of media coverage for B&Q. It has also clearly brought sponsorship to the attention of a huge number of people who were not aware of just what sponsorship can achieve.”
Marketing Week – March 2005
“The spectacular level of media coverage attracted by Ellen MacArthur over the past few months has alerted sections of the media to the power of sponsorship in a way that no previous single event or occurrence has achieved.”
Nigel Currie – Director of GEM Group and Chairman of the European Sponsorship Association (ESA)
RECORD BREAKING CASE HISTORY
On February 7th 2005 the world watched as Ellen MacArthur fought to complete her incredible round the world solo sailing adventure - an incredible feat of endurance that ended with her smashing the record by over a day. Behind the scenes, the OC Group worked round the clock to manage her campaign in every aspect: media, online, and mobile communication, technical and pyschological support, and sponsor relations.
The media coverage surrounding Ellen MacArthur’s solo round the world record attempt, and her triumphant return to the UK, sparked off a stream of plaudits from industry insiders. It was a flattering position for the OC Group to be in, but from the outset of this project the Offshore Challenges Sailing Team (part of the OC Group) were continuing with the company’s long-standing philosophy of communicating the project to the widest possible audience and maximising the sponsors’ return. Not rocket science – just focus, hard work and commitment from a group of people who are passionate about what they do.
Ellen’s Round the World Record Attempt began at the drawing board
Like all good projects a lot of thought, planning and preparation went into the production of not only the record-breaking trimaran but also the long-term communications strategy. The trimaran was the first venture of the Kingfisher plc sponsorship that started in 1998, in which the boat would be campaigned under the retail brands B&Q and Castorama – the two giant DIY retailers in Kingfisher’s portfolio. This presented Offshore Challenges Sailing Team with their first marketing challenge – how to effectively brand the 75ft trimaran for two title sponsors, with respective primary target markets of the UK and France. Awareness for Castorama in the UK was pointless and vice versa for B&Q in France. The solution was to dual-brand the boat – one side in the B&Q livery and the other in the Castorama livery. Job done! Although, it did in many cases increase the work two-fold but the implementation has proved successful. Not many people in the UK actually realise the boat has a ‘blue’ French side! This rather radical idea was to be one of the reason’s the Record attempt broke more than just sailing records – IPSOS research in March revealed a staggering 57% brand association for B&Q (the best Premier League shirt sponsorship scores about 26%). Clean, powerful branding – assisted by one of the great sponsor benefits of sailing – the much used boat name ‘B&Q’ – true ‘title sponsorship’. The equivalent of David Beckham being called David Vodafone Beckham!
Technology equals communication
Offshore Challenges Sailing Team had created a leading-edge Formula 1 ocean racing machine, now they set about communicating the project. Just as digital and cable TV has changed the face of broadcasting over the last decade so has technology allowed a platform for offshore sailing to be communicated effectively back to shore –its no longer radio silence between start and finish guns. Offshore Challenges Sailing Team has always been at the leading of communications technology and the long-term goal has been to create a ‘virtual stadium’. OC Technology, part of the OC Group, created an onboard media system that included 12 Sony cameras and microphones that could all be operated from down below via a simple switching box, and video compression/transmission and video conferencing that helped put the story on national news during the attempt thanks to BT Broadband’s support. The website was the gateway – www.teamellen.com allowed the public and media to follow the race by the minute with ‘live’ webcams revealing life on board for MacArthur, real-time boat data updated every hour and 3d animations from Voyager 2020 showing her progress around the world – part of the OC Technology toolkit to help take the story to the widest possible non-sailing audience. Latest news was delivered by email and to mobile phones via sms, java and wap applications – all developed by OC Vision, the integrated creative design and marketing technology arm of OC Group.
With this communications technology in place, Offshore Challenges Sailing Team set about ‘telling the story’. Only a handful of skippers had ever sailed a multihull solo around the world and only two previously managed it non-stop – Ellen was taking on a huge challenge. Ellen’s awareness amongst the media is good but getting editorial space for a ‘sailing’ story is not always easy when up against football whatever the medium – print, TV or radio. But the Offshore Challenges Sailing Team media department works on the premise that they have a story that people want to hear and this process starts by sending email updates to their ‘opted-in’ 100,000+ database. The public interest in the story just snowballed – the Active 24 hosted official website had over 700,000 unique visitors on the finish day, and over 3 million in total over the 71 days - and this had a big part to do with driving the media interest. People wanted to hear about Ellen’s record attempt and they even started campaigning the media to tell the story. The rivalry between the networks and newspapers also played a part in driving up the coverage until it reached fever pitch level at the finish in Falmouth.
An unprecedented amount of media coverage was achieved at the finish - 15 hours of strongly branded ‘live’ coverage across the BBC, ITN networks and Sky reaching a cumulative audience of 100 million viewers. Terrestial networks in Germany, USA, Spain, Italy, Australia and beyond took up the OC Group’s satellite feeds. Newspapers from Bangkok to New York, Bombay to Sydney, Stockholm to Istanbul picked up the story, with front pages in France and just about every UK national newspaper – broadsheet and tabloid.
Through the Team Ellen project, offshore sailing has once again shown itself to be a mature, high value sport – worthy of the most demanding of sponsors.
----- Ends -----
For further information on OC Group, please contact Inbar Meystar (Marketing and Communication OC Group), inbar@offshorechallenges.com
OC Group
Address: Cowes Waterfront – Venture Quays, Castle Street, East Cowes, PO32 6EZ, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom Tel +44 (0) 8700 630 219 Fax +44 (0) 207 681 2759
Mark Turner and Ellen MacArthur’s OC Group is dedicated to turnkey solutions in sponsorship, marketing, communication and event management projects in adventure sports. The group operates across Europe, the USA and Australasia, with a home base in Cowes, Isle of Wight. OC Group consists of an events management business (OC Events, ie The Transat); a dedicated technology development division (OC Technology); an integrated creative design business (OC Vision); a management training business (OC Leading Lights) and the athlete management business (Offshore Challenges Sailing Team) whose projects have won four Hollis Sponsorship Awards.
Address: Cowes Waterfront – Venture Quays, Castle Street, East Cowes, PO32 6EZ, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom Tel +44 (0) 8700 630 219 Fax +44 (0) 207 681 2759
Mark Turner and Ellen MacArthur’s OC Group is dedicated to turnkey solutions in sponsorship, marketing, communication and event management projects in adventure sports. The group operates across Europe, the USA and Australasia, with a home base in Cowes, Isle of Wight. OC Group consists of an events management business (OC Events, ie The Transat); a dedicated technology development division (OC Technology); an integrated creative design business (OC Vision); a management training business (OC Leading Lights) and the athlete management business (Offshore Challenges Sailing Team) whose projects have won four Hollis Sponsorship Awards.
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