CASE STUDY
Rugby Football League
THE BRIEF
We have worked with the Rugby Football League (RFL) since 2015 to drive audiences to international test matches at the London Olympic Stadium.
Activity
Our relationship with and knowledge of the London media and stakeholder network is extremely strong, Since 2014 we have become the ‘go-to’ agency to generate awareness, excitement and a major audience to sports events in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Our expertise in this area means we are able to use detailed insight to identify the key audiences predisposed to buying tickets for major sporting events at the London Stadium, as well as targeting Rugby League fans.
We worked with players including Martin Offiah, Ryan Hall, Josh Hodgson, Dan Sarginson, Sam Burgess, and Tom Burgess to develop some strong creative content, which drove key messages across social, digital, broadcast, print and online.
In addition to maintaining a regular London and national media profile for the England team, for both matches our creative content secured high impact broadcast, print and online media coverage, including Radio 1, Sky News & Sports News, the Mail Online, BBC 5 Live Breakfast & Radio 4 Today, BBC London, Sport Magazine, Metro, The Times, The Guardian, Visit London, Time Out London as well local London media and sport and trade media. Twitter was also a key channel, resulting in thousands of engagements.
Alongside the PR campaign we commissioned a digital billboard at Stratford tube station, distributed flyers at the Olympic Park, and sent a targeted email marketing campaign to London event-goers.
We also harnessed our strong stakeholder relations, including those with several London boroughs, Transport For London, Sport England and the London Legacy Development Commission to provide support by promoting our content. We set up the QEOP London Major Events Comms Group to carry content through partner websites and social media channels and held several senior media stakeholder events to further engage leading sports media in Rugby League.
In addition to our work with the RFL we have been appointed by Bath Rugby to drive ticket sales for their upcoming match with key rivals, the Leicester Tigers, an event known as ‘The Clash’, which will take place on 8th April 2017 at Twickenham Stadium.
The Results
In 2015 we helped to sell more than 45,000 tickets for England V New Zealand match, with the partnerships and relationships built in London and the M25 area accounting for 65% of ticket sales.
For the 2016 England V Australia match, over 35,000 tickets were sold. When we started work on the campaign, 15,000 tickets had been sold; we played a significant role in delivering a further 20,000 ticket sales in just one month.
