Clipper Race and De Lage Landen unite again in new partnership deal

Following a hugely successful partnership in the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race, De Lage Landen a global provider of leasing and finance solutions, has announced that it will continue the relationship, sponsoring a yacht entry in the 2013-14 edition of the world’s longest yacht race.

De Lage Landen, a subsidiary of Rabobank, invested in the Clipper 11-12 Race to launch a worldwide employee engagement programme following a period of global growth through acquisitions, with the yacht acting as a catalyst to unite their 5,400 members (employees) worldwide. Eight specially selected DLL Crew Ambassadors raced to their international offices on almost every continent.

The project flourished with De Lage Landen members coming together to celebrate the Clipper Race at stopovers around the world, including New York and the Dutch port of Den Helder. Positive reactions from customers across the globe were equally overwhelming.

De Lage Landen will use their involvement in the 2013-14 edition of the Clipper Race to build on that external success using the global reach of the Clipper Race to unify the business and engage with customers in key markets while building on their previous internal engagement initiative through a popular nomination process for staff to take part in the race, giving 16 specially selected members the chance to compete as a tag team in this extraordinary around the world adventure.

The partnership also keeps De Lage Landen at the forefront of the Clipper Race’s own growing success story. The 2013-14 edition of the race will see the introduction of the new fleet of Clipper 70 ocean racing yachts with De Lage Landen Embraces the World one of an expanded fleet of twelve boats and around 650 crew taking part in the 40,000-mile race.

Jan Kusters, Executive Board Member and Managing Director Europe and AsiaPac of De Lage Landen said: “This is the second time De Lage Landen will participate in the Clipper Race. We used the last edition to strengthen the connection between more than 5000 members of our worldwide organisation. We also brought customers aboard to witness this. This combination was a tremendous success.  Therefore we are going to build further on this initiative, bringing our networking organisation to the next level.”

Set up by legendary yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the Clipper Race is the only event of its kind for people from all walks of life, regardless of previous sailing experience, offering ordinary people the chance to achieve something extraordinary sailing around the world.

Sir Robin said: “We are delighted to welcome De Lage Landen back on board as an official yacht sponsor in the race. De Lage Landen’s vision to use the race to unite their members around the globe proved to be a great success and their renewed sponsorship demonstrates the power of the race to meet our partners’ objectives. With the introduction of the new fleet of Clipper 70s we hope there will be even greater opportunities for our partners and we know De Lage Landen will be at the forefront of the growing success of our event.”

De Lage Landen also benefited from significant global media coverage during the race with the brand reaching a cumulative global news media audience of over 120 million people and receiving a 30 per cent share of all Clipper 11-12 Race media coverage. De Lage Landen Embraces the World also featured prominently in the Clipper Race television documentary, Against The Tide, which is broadcast in 126 countries worldwide and reaches a cumulative audience of more than half a billion people.

The Clipper 13-14 Race will set off from the UK in August on an eight-leg journey around the globe stopping at 15 ports on six continents over 11 months.

There are still berths available for people from The Netherlands to compete in the Clipper 13-14 Round the World Yacht Race.

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