It really is exciting times in Cheltenham! Following the announcement of the Tour of Britain heading to the town, businesses are also being given a fantastic opportunity to enjoy the event in style, with an exclusive venue right in the heart of all the action. Combined with a delicious meal from a Michelin-Guide recommended chef, as well as two Olympian guest speakers, the event, which will run all day and culminate in a race-side, finish-line view, will see businesses come together for an once-in-a-lifetime experience.
As part of the hospitality offering in Imperial Gardens, attendees will be treated to a lively discussion between Gold-Medal Olympian and local lad Matt Gotrel OBE, and Paralympian Hand Cyclist Mel Nicholls. Chaired by Steve Knibbs of the BBC, guests will hear the two speak about their sporting experiences, before being given the chance to meet them over lunch. The three-course menu is being prepared by Michelin-Guide recommended chef Bob Parkinson of Made by Bob, after which guests will be transferred to an exclusive VIP viewing zone, right next to the finish line.
Tickets for the Corporate Hospitality in a 42ft yurt in Imperial Gardens are available at £350 +VAT, or tables of ten at £3,250 +VAT. Anyone interested in Corporate Hospitality should speak to our managing director Angie Petkovic on 01242 250 692 or by emailing [email protected]. Attendees will join town leaders and local businesses including Bloor Homes and Hunter Page Planning.
We're really excited here at apt marketing & pr as there are a number of sponsorship opportunities available for the penultimate stage of the OVO Energy Tour of Britain 2017!
This September, our hometown of Cheltenham will host the penultimate stage of the Tour Of Britain. The stage will see the world’s top professional cyclists race through the Cotswolds to arrive in our historic spa town on Saturday 9th September − and for the first time, a stage finish of the Tour of Britain (TOB) men's race.
Residents and visitors to Cheltenham not only have the chance to get up close to the world-class race, but to also see the town transformed for another major festival, celebrating cycling, accessible to all.
There is an exciting variety of sponsorship and business partnership packages are available to suit all budgets, from finish line tickets and corporate hospitality, to naming rights for the festival and the Tour of Britain stage. All of these fantastic sponsorship opportunities are available on the new dedicated website: www.cheltenhamcyclingfestival.org.uk
Many of the packages feature exclusive opportunities not available on general sale, such as seats in front of the finish line, or one of four tickets to ride in the guest car for the full Stage.
Tracey Crews, director of planning at Cheltenham Borough Council says: “To make the very best of this world-class event, we have a comprehensive package of business partnership opportunities available to suit all budgets, from finish line tickets and corporate hospitality, to naming rights for the festival and the Tour of Britain Stage.
“This is a thrilling and high profile event for Cheltenham that will have an international reach, attracting large numbers of visitors to our town.”
There are also one and three-year packages available to help support the event and make it a huge success for the town and the local community.
As well as having some of road cycling's world-class greats in town, the festival will also feature competitions, a street fair, a demo zone, a kids zone and much more besides, encouraging everyone to get onto two wheels. Organisers are expecting thousands of people to flock into the town to enjoy the festivities.
For more information and to take advantage of these opportunities, contact Victoria Petkovic-Short, our very own Account Director on 01242 250692 or email [email protected]. We're really excited to be working on this local event and look forward to hearing from you!
The United States has been in full swing celebrating the National Football League Superbowl and with the championships being one of the most watched sporting events in the world; people in the UK will wait until the wee hours of the morning to make sure they don’t miss a game... but we all know that with the Superbowl comes a battle of the ads.
Many Superbowl advertisements have gone down in history and it’s not because they interrupt the sporting entertainment. In 2013, over 50% of the Superbowl viewers just tuned in to watch the slightly creatively crazed ads. However to advertise to the global viewers comes at a huge price...a 30 second slot will cost you around $4 million and for a 60 second slot you’d be looking at paying a jaw dropping $8 million!
Newcastle Brown Ale couldn’t afford to produce a multi-million dollar advertisement for the 2015 Superbowl; they could however, afford to produce an action packed storyboard! The ad, which can be found on their ‘IfWeMadeIt’ website, details typically unrealistic scenarios that can all be solved with a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. The scene is set with a desert beach island in the middle of the ocean, a man washed up on the beach and a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale that washes up too. The cap is popped and immediately thousands of bikini clad women are before him, a little like the Lynx advert that aired a few years back. The storyboard continues with a handful of surreal scenarios including a wild beach party complete with dancing sharks, deadly deep sea robots, fuming football gorillas and cool skate boarding cats all whilst throwing life saving bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale! It certainly would have been a Superbowl ad that would have kept a significant amount of viewers entertained, especially if they could’ve afforded to make it!
Fast Food giant McDonald’s could obviously afford to have a slot in the Superbowl ads but it’s not the ‘Give Lovin Get Lovin’ ad that is making the news. Brands have been trending nationally on Twitter due to the pre-game and in-game advertisements and McDonalds has been very clever retweeting thousands of other marketing spots and competitions; the best bit is that McDonalds have been adding ‘lovin’ into each one. McDonalds may just be doing better with their social media this year than their actual Big Game TV spot!
Jeep chose to enter the Superbowl battle of the ads to show off their new off-road-lite model Renegade, the ad consists of various environmental shots from around the world with shots introducing the newly modelled vehicle. It is shot with soft camera movements and the transitions are clean cut with background track of folk music titled This Land is Your Land. It could be slightly embarrassing for Jeep because late last year North Face created a very similar advertisement, in fact almost exactly the same; even the same background track was used! The only differences between the two are the different logos and unique selling points; someone must’ve really liked the North Face ad at Jeep and decided to use the idea...
Of course, over the years, many Superbowl ads have been shocking and been stereotypical towards genders and this year’s example has to be the parody advert from Totino’s Pizza Rolls. The advert opens to a room full of men and a woman serving the branded pizza rolls, she then retires back to the kitchen and speaks to the audience saying how bored she used to be whilst waiting for the next batch of snacks to be ready; she then introduces the Super Bowl Activity Pack For Women with small puzzles and toys to keep women entertained whilst serving the ‘boys’.
This year’s Superbowl has seen many big brand companies such as Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Doritos and Toyota all take part in the battle of the ads but some of the favourites this year have been ‘The Brady Bunch’ by Snickers sticking to the ‘You’re Not You When You’re Hungry’ campaign with an appearance from the highly tattooed and slightly scary looking Danny Trejo, as Marcia Brady. Another is The ‘Lost Dog’ ad from Budweiser; obviously the story follows a lost puppy that is rescued by a group of horses from the jaws of a wolf – how heart warming.
So once again the battle of the ads are over for 2015 as NFL Superbowl comes to an end, they’ll be back next year with crazy and shocking ads, many companies may have even started storyboarding already... if not they’ll certainly need to start budgeting for their spot...
As if England’s World Cup woes weren’t enough for Roy Hodgson and his men, England star Wayne Rooney has been subject to yet more abuse on social media platforms following his apologetic status regarding his performances on his official Facebook page.
The England forward was once hailed the ‘White Pele’ by Sir Alex Ferguson but after a glittering career at club level he’s failed to live up to that weight of expectation on football’s greatest stage – The World Cup. This has led to a backlash from England fans and even businesses who instead of supporting the team have decided to make their opinions public in a variety of ways.
The latest instalment comes from Chicken Lodge, a takeaway restaurant in Manchester, who humorously brought their latest chicken burger to the market which goes by the name of the ‘Rooney Burger’.
Described as plain, nothing special and over-priced the ‘Rooney Burger’ is now available at £18 a burger, luckily a lot cheaper than Rooney’s own price tag at Manchester United.
The restaurant later proceeded to target England captain Steven Gerrard when the takeaway commented on their own status with the following message - “you can also buy the Gerrard burger, same deal, same price”.
Rebecca Adlington is also another prime example who has been the subject of Twitter and social media trolls when she received abuse over the way she looked. Even after winning Olympic medals, Adlington was tormented over the size of her nose which left her so self-conscious she eventually ended up getting surgery to reduce its size. In an interview back in April, she revealed that she had blocked thousands of people on Twitter who sent her abusive messages and tweets.
Marketing activity like the ‘Rooney Burger’ isn’t the problem; in fact it’s very clever and follows a similar approach to Paddy Power’s social media activity, however it does highlight the amount of abuse certain celebrities receive on social media networks. Social media is all about conversation and opinions, but while that is great in many regards, celebrities have been constantly abused by ‘trolls’ on social media platforms with no real solution to the problem. Whilst banter is classified as one thing, murder, racial and rape threats are another and social media networks needs to monitor this to better effect, to ensure high profile celebrities like Wayne Rooney and Rebecca Adlington are protected.
After a tense World Cup match yesterday between Uruguay and Italy, Luis Suarez hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. In a game that decided which team would go through the group stages; Suarez was shown to bite Italian defender Chiellini on the shoulder - as if this wasn’t bad enough, this is the third time he has bitten a player during a football match.
Twitter erupted with rage alongside jokes, and businesses were quick to bring out their own puns to promote their products alongside the controversy.
Whilst we wait to hear what his punishment will be, we’ve picked out our top 5 brand responses in this global scale real-time advertising:
5. Domino’s
Domino’s were able to easily promote their popular #TwoForTuesday deal by linking it in with the idea that Suarez bit the Italian because he was hungry.
Budweiser tweeted this picture of a man (Suarez of course) trying to bite off the cap of a Bud Light that can be twisted off – highlighting the unnecessary biting taking place.
The tweet has received just fewer than 1000 retweets to date in less than 24 hours.
Whilst Aldi’s UK Twitter profile didn’t get involved in this fiasco, their Ireland account came up with this list of own-brand products the Uruguay player can eat – whilst crossing off the Italian Footballer at the end. Although this hasn’t been as successful as other brands in gaining interactions, it was posted in the aftermath of the incident so we expect it to pick up speed.
One of our favourite responses to the incident has come from Specsavers. Receiving over 20,000 retweets and just under 1000 favourites to date, this has been a great piece of marketing from the company. They have stood out by playing on Chiellini’s name with their famous strap line “Should’ve gone to Specsavers” – without even mentioning Suarez’s name.
It looked difficult for Snickers to come up with anything other than this to relate to the incident however they managed to come out with this brilliant piece that is perfectly fitted to their brand. With over 35,000 retweets and 15,000 favourites it will be hard for other brands to top this one.
Whilst we aren’t agreeing with what Suarez has done, we think these brands in particular have capitalised on the opportunity to show how effective real-time marketing can be.
Earlier this week saw the launch of a “hands free” urine controlled video game called ‘The Captain’s Cannon’ game by Diageo-owned rum brand Captain Morgan.
Consumers are incentivised to compete against each other in the pub by playing at the urinal using the control of their “flow” to fire the ball from the Captains ship into a digital goal. Once their ‘ammunition’ has run out they will be placed on the leader board up against their friends.
The concept came to fruition, as per The Drum’s report, after the rum brand conducted a poll with 1,000 Britons and found that a third of England football fans are concerned about how the new ball may hamper England’s chances in the tournament this year; claiming their game will help to put fans mind’s at ease by putting the official ball “through its paces”. The creative is set to feature in 10 London locations and aims to build a buzz around the World Cup.
Strange, very strange!
That brings us to the end of our comprehensive list of the good, bad and ridiculously strange of the world cup advertisements. Let us know your opinions of the latest world cup adverts by tweeting us @apt_marketing or in the comments section below.
It’s quite a mystery that a powerhouse brand like Mars has come up with such an amateur video in the build-up to the World Cup.
As part of their World Cup campaign, which features England players Steven Gerrard, Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck, Mars show a fan giving the players some mind boggling instructions on how to take their free-kick in a game situation. Somehow the trio understand the directions and manage to pull off a Free-kick and score a goal. The advert then finishes off with Gerrard dedicating his goal to the fan.
The problem with this advert is that the concept and execution of the advert is tacky and also overly cheesy. There’s also no real purpose behind the campaign and it lacks any sense of imagination. We only wish Mars could post more videos with more emotion and a better story, just like their one from 2012;
The ‘just play’ project advertisement was a polar opposite of Mars’ latest advert as it shared emotion and relevance to humanity, whilst showcasing a great sense of togetherness within communities on a deeper level. This advert was also a great reflection of the confectionary brand values that does a lot of work with the FA for amateur football clubs in the community. Hopefully we’ll see more adverts of this ilk from Mars in the future.
Our last instalment of the good, bad and strange of this summer’s World Cup advertisements will be here tomorrow!
With the tournament kicking off tomorrow and with all eyes firmly fixated on Brazil we have taken a look at the good, bad and ridiculously strange marketing campaigns for this years’ world cup.
The good: Nike –
Nike has been a star in the build up to this summer World Cup in Brazil and fully deserves their reward for being our brand of the tournament.
Despite fellow competitors Adidas being official partners of the 2014 World Cup, Nike has managed to oust them with two stunning advertisements as part of their ‘Risk Everything’ campaign.
For many people, we can relate with kicking a football around the park after school and at the weekend, trying to copy the skills of our favourite footballers. Nike took this concept and cleverly crafted this fantastic advert as the second part of their three series campaign.
Inspired by “The Incredibles”, Nike’s latest video named “The Last Game”, is a five minute animation that tells the story of a mad scientist who creates clones of some of the best footballers in the world. The human versions take too many risks on the pitch resulting in a higher percentage of failure; while the mechanical formed clones are precisely and mathematically tuned to never make a mistake and take the risk out of the game.
Brazilian legend Ronaldo then reunites the scattered squad, who have fallen on hard times, for a winner takes all game. The players go on to victory, highlighting the sports brands mantra of ‘taking risks beats the safety-first approach’ on the world football stage.
Collectively both advertisements have received over an astounding 100 million views on YouTube (on the 12th June) with the “The Last Game” advert only having been launched this week.
Using an emotive approach they’ve managed to stir sentiment through producing a robust story which enables people to form a stronger connection with the advertisements and the brand. Their messages also reflect the values of the brand and give a great insight into the core of Nike as a company. It’s a refreshing change of pace by Nike and according to Marketing Week’s report earlier this week it’s had a fantastic effect on sales for the sports brand.
With the 2014 World Cup just round the corner, businesses are doing all they can to get involved in one of the biggest events in the sporting calendar.
However Asda hasn’t been as successful with their latest product design. To stand out over other England Flags, Asda went one step further and created wearable flags with a hood – which has stirred up complaints on social media due to its resemblance to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) outfits.
Whilst the supermarket insists that they only opted for the hood on the wearable England flags because of the unpredictable British weather, the flags are still being partially withdrawn from stores across the country due to its similarities with the racist US organisation.
Originally Asda was planning to withdraw the hooded flag from all stores; however they have now given this decision to individual store managers to decide based on how they think the customer will respond in their area.
Just when we thought Asda had hit the nail on their head with their family friendly England gnomes, they have unintentionally caused a storm of unhappy customers right before the World Cup kicks off. Last year Asda caused a similar storm after selling a ‘mental patient’ Halloween costume that they withdrew from stores however this time Asda is sticking by their idea and plan on releasing a Brazilian flag in the same style.
It leaves us to say that whilst Asda clearly only had good intentions by adding a hood to the flag they’ve overlooked a major flaw in the design that has ultimately undermined their campaign and led to ridicule and some backlash from consumers.
Earlier this week Google announced the newest chapter in their development scheme - Google’s Self-Driving Car - that doesn’t include a steering wheel and you don’t even have to drive!
The car features a wealth of high tech gadgets and software including sensors that remove blind spots and can detect objects more than two football fields away in all directions! If that’s not impressive enough for you they’ve also included a simple start, stop button and a screen that shows the route.
The bad news is though; it might be quite some time before we get to ‘drive’ these vehicles here in the UK, as the car is still only at the prototype stage, with Google planning to run a small pilot program in California in the next couple of years according to the company’s blog.
This is yet another bold and innovative move by Google who are vastly notorious for their crafty inventions. First came Google Glass earlier this year in America – the world’s first wearable optical technology; and now one of the first self-driving car to grace the roads of planet earth.
These technology innovations show a thought-provoking relationship between Google’s latest inventions and the concept of Moonshot Thinking – an example of Smart creativity, one of the three marketing trends of 2013.
The essence of Moonshot Thinking is the notion that instead of making a mere, average 10% gain, you can be the one that makes that 10x improvement over what currently exists. It’s about taking the combination of a huge problem, a radical solution to that problem, and finding the breakthrough technology that just might make that solution possible. Think of it as setting yourself an audacious long term goal, deciding on its impact and then mapping out ways to make it happen.
That’s exactly what Google has embodied here with their latest creations in Google Glass and the self-driving car project. They’ve come up with an idea that is perceived as impossible and found the solution, using technology to make it happen; that’s what makes them such great leaders in product innovation.
