Awards haul

Offshore Challenges Sailing Team in the limelight at Hollis Sponsorship Awards

At London’s Grosvenor House hotel last night, the support team behind Ellen’s MacArthur’s Offshore Challenges Sailing Team had their efforts rewarded at the Hollis Sponsorship Awards as they walked away with three top awards. The Awards recognise the very best and most effective sponsorship campaigns for the year.

This recognition by the sponsorship industry of Ellen’s team could not be more timely as the commercial team are currently negotiating for a new title sponsor for Ellen’s on-going sailing plans: “As we head into the next phase of our project which will see the Offshore Challenges Sailing Team return to the competitive world of IMOCA Open 60 monohull racing, we are looking forward to progressing this project with a brand new title sponsor and so this comes as a great boost to the team in recognition of what we have achieved so far on land as well as at sea,” said Ellen MacArthur.

The Offshore Challenges Sailing Team won both the Sports Sponsorship Award and the ESA International Sponsorship Awards against some strong contenders. In the Sports Sponsorship Award category sponsored by Aura Sports, they came up against npower Ashes Test Series 2005, John Smith’s Grand National, CIS Insurance Cups and Brain’s sponsorship of the Welsh Rugby team. But the B&Q title-sponsored campaign that culminated in MacArthur setting a new world record for a solo circumnavigation, won out.

In the ESA International Sponsorship Award, one of the most hotly-contested awards, the Offshore Challenges Sailing Team nomination came out on top against BP Explorer (sailing), Chang Beer Everton Football Club and the Nikon European Golf Challenge.

Then on top of these two winning awards, the team were to receive one further accolade and clinched the best Overall Sponsorship for 2006. This is not the first time the Offshore Challenges Sailing Team and their title sponsors have been recognised by the judges of the Hollis Sponsorship Awards, having been the recipient of four other awards in the past.

Ellen’s triumphant return after 71 days at sea sparked off a round of plaudits from industry insiders: “The branding and positioning of signage has been outstanding and work with the media has also been cleverly planned and skilfully managed. The whole package added up to one of the most successful marketing communications campaigns in recent memory,” Nigel Currie, chairman of the European Sponsorship Association [extract taken from Nigel Currie’s Media Comment column in Marketing Week].

“It was a flattering position for the company to be in,” commented Mark Turner, CEO OC Group, “and it was great for the team behind the scenes to get the recognition they deserved. Although as far as they were concerned they were just doing their job – communicating the project to the widest possible audience and ensuring that the sponsors get the best return possible.”

The unprecedented media coverage surrounding Ellen’s return in February 2005 both in the UK and overseas, turned it into one of the biggest sailing stories in history. It was front-page news on every national UK newspaper and was covered ‘live’ by both the BBC and ITN. An estimated 50+ hours of coverage was achieved in the UK during the record attempt reaching an audience of over 100 million viewers (UK and worldwide via BBC World and Sky). IPSOS confirmed that Ellen’s awareness in the UK was 77% (very few mainstream public figures match these awareness levels) and spontaneous awareness of B&Q’s association with Ellen stood at 57% (one of the highest figures ever seen by IPSOS).

The ESA International Sponsorship Award recognised the campaign’s diversity in presenting a dual-branded project for B&Q in the UK and its French DIY counterpart Castorama across Europe – two sponsorships for the price of one! The 75ft trimaran was branded B&Q one side and Castorama the other, and the entire communications programme was two-fold targeting the relevant countries with the appropriate brands. In France, Ellen’s awareness was recorded at 68% and has maintained these high levels since the year 2001 when she finished second in the non-stop solo Vendée Globe race. Very few athletes reach these levels of awareness and even fewer in more than one country.