Clipper Race Media
Digital, Growth, Human endeavour, Media, Profile
Objective
More than just a sailing race, the inspiring stories of everyday people taking on one of Mother Nature’s toughest and remotest of challenges captures the attention of news, sport, lifestyle, business, travel, technology sectors, and specialist trade media on a global level, allowing Clipper Race partners to increase their profiles and reach new audiences.
Fans and supporters go online to follow the progress of the race via its official website and social channels, whilst stories of the action and the characters involved are covered by newspapers, consumer magazines, television and radio news, feature programmes and more.
Online news and social networking sites bring the race to millions more as dramatic footage or commentary is shared amongst colleagues, friends, family and supporters, whilst race partners employ creative communications strategies to get media results in their specific target markets.
TV channels such as BBC One in the UK, Channel 7 in Australia, and NBC in North America have broadcast coverage of the race in peak viewing times, whilst news publications such as The Sunday Telegraph, The Times, China Daily, Sydney Morning Herald, and El Pais have run stories updating readers on race action, human interest stories and the ensuing dramas and triumphs as they unfold.
On board satellite communication systems are embedded in each yacht to provide crew members of various nationalities and occupations a way to communicate their on-going adventure as it unfolds via video footage, images, blogs and telephone interviews.
Outcome
TYPICAL TEAM PARTNER SUCCESS
- 5,741 online news items
- 447 broadcast mentions
- 111 print articles
- 2,269 social mentions
- £12.3 million AVE
TYPICAL HOST PORT PARTNER SUCCESS
- 2,316 online news items
- 245 broadcast mentions
- 80 print mentions
- 3,146 social mentions
- £4.7 million AVE
Activation
- News media coverage has doubled race-on-race for the past four editions.
- 29,858 media articles captured during the 2017-18 edition (increase of 64% on the previous edition).
- News appeared in 4,967 different media outlets (39% increase).
- 17 million clipperroundtheworld.com page views (10% increase).
- 4.3 million Race Viewer page views (22% increase).
- £17 million AVE (advertising equivalent value) attributed to media coverage.
- News items appeared in 96 different countries, with top engagement coming from China, UK, USA, Australia, Ireland, France, Canada, South Africa, Uruguay, Netherlands, Canada, Italy and Germany.
- The Clipper Race’s Social media channels experienced substantial growth with Facebook followers up by almost 20% to 102,000. Followers on both Instagram and Twitter increased by over 100%.
- The primary social audience for Clipper Race consists of males between the ages of 35 to 44. Total social followers across the Clipper Race channels are 63% male and 37% female.
- The Virtual Clipper Race online game attracted 94,882 players, which was a 56% increase on the previous edition.
- Two six-part TV series named ‘Race of Their Lives’ distributed to over 40 broadcasters worldwide including Sky Sports (UK), Eleven Sports (USA), Fox (Australia) and Star Sports (Asia).
The Clipper Race operates in a unique way which has helped promote Qingdao. Firstly it lasts a relatively long time, with a yacht decorated with Qingdao branding going around the world for a year. Secondly, the media coverage also contributes greatly to spreading Qingdao’s name and influence throughout the globe.