So PR - An award-winning, multi-discipline PR company with a national & international client base.

England Athletics - Yorkshire & Humber

A tall order on a short budget - but we cleared these hurdles for England Athletics.

EA-YH asked for a short-term campaign to raise visibility and bring in new sponsorship - and we gave them much more than they asked for.

The context

In 2007, England Athletics-Yorkshire & Humber (EA-YH) had been running for 2 years. Superb progress had been made with athletes, but EA-YH's public visibility was virtually nil.

The task

We were asked to increase visibility through media coverage; to tell the public about the outstanding athletes in the region; to secure a further year's funding from the sponsor; and to attract new corporate sponsors. In particular, we needed to highlight EA-YH's commitment to maximise the number of their athletes at London 2012.

Timescales & budget

We had 6 months to achieve this, and a tight budget of £2,250 per month.

What we did

• On media coverage, we developed a monthly news ‘hook' and on this we hung a mix of press releases, feature stories, and case studies of featured athletes and coaches
• On creativity for news hooks, we focused on competitions and training days, getting the public involved and using the events as springboards for further stories
• By thinking ‘outside convention', we manage to relevantly extend the appeal of small news stories
• On sponsorship, we built a database of target organisations and wrote to them all, highlighting the benefits of sponsorship and the amount of media coverage EA-YH had recently achieved

The results

• We secured media coverage worth £34,000 in equivalent advertising exposure-including a 3-minutes TV feature
  
• We over-shot our target audience by 50%, reaching 3.3 million people
  
• 50% of all coverage includes a mention of the corporate sponsor
  
• 20 new volunteer coaches signed up as a result of media coverage
  
• The key sponsor signed up for a further year
  
• Several other large businesses committed to support EA-YH
  
• SO was appointed for a further 6 months
  
• England Athletics (national office) asked us to submit a proposal for corporate PR and for work in the 8 other regions