Hollis Publishing recognises global success of solo round the world yacht race
The VELUX 5 OCEANS celebrated at the annual Hollis Sponsorship Awards in London on March 3 as it won the prestigious ESA International Sponsorship Award. VELUX, the worldwide roof window and design company, was recognised for its success in supporting the 5 OCEANS event, the classic solo round the world yacht race organised by Clipper Ventures PLC. Billed as 'The Ultimate Solo Challenge', Clipper Ventures delivered a winning platform for VELUX, creating over EUR 65 million of global media value for their sponsor.
Collecting the award at the gala dinner, VELUX Marketing Director Kent Holm commented, "I am delighted to accept this award on behalf of everyone at VELUX. We have undertaken a thorough evaluation and saw a substantial return on our investment. We are a global company and needed a truly international platform on which to build our brand equity. We are proud to continue our involvement with 'The Ultimate Solo Challenge' into 2010, an event which supports our key values of daylight and fresh air, and which helps to build our brand image across the planet."
Joining Holm on stage was Clipper Ventures' CEO William Ward and Chairman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. Knox-Johnston, who was recently awarded the title of UK Yachtsman of the Year for an unprecedented third time on the back of his inspiring performance in the VELUX 5 OCEANS, added, "Clipper Ventures took over this race in 2002 when it was struggling both commercially and financially. We started our winning partnership with VELUX in September 2005 and with less than 12 months to prepare, we delivered a fantastic race in 2006-07 which brought this classic race back to the forefront of professional offshore yacht racing and engaged with an enormous global audience."
"Now with three years to prepare for the next race, and a productive and positive relationship already established between Clipper Ventures and VELUX, the potential to develop the VELUX 5 OCEANS further is huge and we have high ambitions for the future in 2010."
HOLLIS AWARD OVERVIEW:
1. Campaign Background
Why was the sponsorship right for VELUX's business objectives?
- Global Platform: VELUX operates on more than 40 markets in the world, all of which are covered by VELUX 5 OCEANS
- Reflecting Core Values of Brand and People: VELUX 5 OCEANS and the sport of sailing has brought knowledge about fresh air and daylight, and demonstrates in an impactful manner to customers that VELUX are a global market leader
- Delivering Media Value
- Title Sponsorship
"All VELUX sponsorships must add value to our brand by coinciding or supporting our values. In the case of VELUX 5 OCEANS we have found an international sponsorship with global appeal. Experience from the 2006/07 race and input from our sales companies has shown us that this is a way to establish new relations, bind the individual markets together and increase visibility and awareness of our products all over the world."
Michael Rasmussen, Chief Marketing Officer VELUX
2. Campaign Objectives
1. Generate ?60 million media coverage (UMV) across the key international territories
2. Raise brand awareness and equity, communicating the core company values of daylight, innovation and fresh air
3. Establish the new brand within its heritage and build a foundation for a future legacy
4. Provide a series of "money can't buy" VVIP hospitality for key stakeholders
3. Execution and Exploitation
Incentivisation: Race communications team of market-leading agencies in TV, photography, website and PR delivered integrated campaign to worldwide news, sports & lifestyle media. Uniquely, each agency was incentivised to achieve UMV target.
Innovation: Race team strived to take sailing beyond traditional realms of communication and public experience:
Media: Delivering stories and images to a global audience
- Defining the strong brand: the 'Ultimate Solo Challenge' proposition
- TV documentary and photography team followed race around the world
- First ever live streaming of sailing race start on broadband TV platform
- Branding personalities: positioning skippers with taglines (e.g. 'Maverick')
- Partnerships with NASA and University of Portsmouth delivered engaging content beyond sailing
Events: New concepts for starts enhanced TV imagery and experiential activities for public and VIP hospitality
Technology: Partnership with 'Livewire' brought action into homes via live studio interviews with BBC, Channel4, Fuji TV and Sky
4. Outcome and Evaluation
How was the campaign measured?
Objective 1: global media impact was evaluated by Sports Marketing Surveys
Objective 2: brand awareness was measured using specialist quantitative and qualitative market research agencies
Objective 1
Generate ?60 million media coverage across the key international territories
- VELUX 5 OCEANS has to date delivered in excess of ?65 million of global media value for VELUX, split across Europe, Asia, USA and Australasia
- Research also shows that sponsorship provided good balance of local and worldwide media exposure for VELUX brand
Objective 2
Raise brand awareness and equity, communicating the core company values.
- VELUX international sales companies reported that the sponsorship led to a number of new relationships and contacts in key markets
- Analysis showed a significant increase in brand awareness and an overall increase in brand equity of 20% in one year, the largest jump in VELUX's history
- VELUX 5 OCEANS has been a great event for uniting VELUX employees across the world and focussing for the first time on one central marketing initiative, creating unity as well as introducing a fighting spirit. VELUX has used the sponsorship as for internal team building and other HR development projects
- The awareness and popularity of VELUX 5 OCEANS can also be seen in a larger context simply by the number of pages a Google search returns (600,000) or the number of times video clips have been seen on YouTube (25,000)
Objective 3
Establish the new event within its heritage and build a foundation for a future legacy
- Within 6 months of race finish, VELUX re-signed as title sponsor for the next race in 2010/11 with a significantly increase in their investment
Objective 4
Create a series of money can't buy VVIP hospitality opportunities
- 700 of the world's leading architects were entertained as guests at the start and 250 at the finish across a three day period
- They were taken on a tour of Bilbao, a city re-generated around architectural design, attended the 'VELUX International Award for Design' at the Guggenheim Museum, met the skippers and attended the start and finish celebrations
- 95% of guests claimed that their perception and understanding of VELUX as a company and as a brand had increased as a result of attending the event
5. The future and long term benefits
"An analysis we performed after the 2006/07 race proved that our previous investment was more than returned to us in the form of new relationships, publicity, internal team building and the many contacts. The total value of the worldwide media exposure, in relation to the total cost of sponsorship, was highly favourable. We are both proud and pleased to continue our involvement with 'The Ultimate Solo Challenge', an event which supports our key values of daylight and fresh air. We will achieve important long-term benefits through the continuation of our sponsorship. We will use our experiences from 2006/7 to make the most of our sponsorship and make 2010 an even better event."
Michael Rasmussen, Chief Marketing Officer VELUX
6. Conclusions
Results exceeded all 3 principal campaign objectives, with the innovative media strategy leveraging the latest technology and bringing the high drama events to life.
- Stunning photography of the Bay of Biscay storm went around the world and claimed the prize for 'Best Sport Photograph 2007' in Germany - over 25,000 requests from the media for image downloads
- The amazing story of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston returning to ocean racing at the age of 67 captured the imagination of media all over the world
- 12-part TV documentary shown on Channel4, Sky and 32 global broadcasters, including one-off program on rescue commissioned by Channel4 - subsequently shown at Vue Cinemas across the UK
2006 - 2007
