Great Britain
Brand awareness, Economic impact, Experiential / Engagement, Trade and investment

The GREAT campaign and its delivery partners used the Clipper Race as a catalyst for stimulating international growth with promotion efforts according to campaign priorities in each market.Each activity aimed to either;

1. Provide unique moments that allow trade relationships to be created, cultivated and influenced.
2. Create awareness of the GREAT Britain campaign and its core messages through compelling and authentic content.
3. Promote the UK as a welcoming destination in order to encourage the world to visit, study and do business with.
4. Showcase the UK as a thought leader across diverse topics.

Unique moments were created internationally during sailing experiences for targeted investors hosted by the British Government. Soft power success was measured on qualitative outtakes and the quality of contacts engaged. An Amazon executive who went out on a sail in Seattle said: ‘It was the greatest event of my life’.

The UK was promoted globally through targeted events, key messages threaded through speaker opportunities and installations creating brand awareness. During the Qingdao stopover, the city’s skyline was taken over by a video of the GREAT Britain yacht projected onto the buildings.

Content generation activities provided material for media, hero imagery and narrative for social channels, which was independently evaluated by Meltwater media monitoring.

In collaboration with the race, GREAT campaign delivery partners hosted industry specific seminars in multiple markets, as well as participating as a thought leader on the topic of ‘A Data Future’ at Nasdaq HQ, NYC. The GREAT Britain Clipper Race Partnership was shortlisted for its successes and named as a finalist in the International category of the 2019 UK Sponsorship Awards.

The Clipper Race was used as a catalyst for activity by GREAT campaign delivery partners globally.

How many moments do we get to spend with a contact one-to-one, disconnected from outside interruptions? Focusing on soft power influencing moments, created through shared Clipper Race sailing experiences, the partnership offered unique opportunities for GREAT campaign delivery partners to forge meaningful relationships with formally unreachable key contacts.

Underpinning the experiential element of the partnership, the Clipper Race delivered a multi-platform campaign which generated;

• Compelling content, including a Live Skype from the middle of the Pacific which stimulated conversation at an Aerospace summit.
• Brand awareness; LED video on the Nasdaq Tower, New York and the highrise skyline in Qingdao, hero images used across outdoor advertising.
• Thought leadership; GREAT Britain representatives featured as panellists at concept events on the sailing industry and UK-Sino relationships in China and ‘A Data Future’ in New York.

Storytelling; The ‘Welcome to GREAT’ campaign was told through Clipper Race stories which reached media and influencers in 42 countries.