The Spirit Of Sport
Media Launch – ‘The Spirit Of Sport’ Public Artwork for Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council
NW CIPR Awards 2006 Winner
Objectives: Bolton MBC commissioned a new piece of public art, ‘The Spirit Of Sport’, to be installed near Bolton’s Reebok Stadium in December 2005. It featured mirrored tiles featuring the faces of Bolton sporting legends and unsung local heroes involved in sporting activities.
Planning: SKV advised that the council secured buy-in from media by recruiting local people as ‘ambassadors’ – and to use people who were set to feature on the finished sculpture. Bolton boxer Amir Khan - whose popularity and profile offered cut-through across many media and audiences – was recruited as an ambassador.
SKV recommended that professional photography was commissioned to capture high quality controlled images. We organised an official media launch and issued all target media with an embargoed release and photo-call. Local people featured on the sculpture and Amir Khan were highlighted as available for interview and photos.
Creative Input:
- SKV art-directed an early morning shoot with school children before the official photo-call
- We arranged a separate photo-shoot with Amir upon his arrival – before giving other media access to him.
- By 1pm these images had been distributed to national picture desks, in time to hit editorial/picture planning meetings for the next day’s editions.
- SKV also highlighted to all media that SOS was actually higher than The Angel Of The North, which grabbed attention.
Results: SKV excited BBC Radio Five Live about the ‘unsung heroes’ angle. This translated into two 12 minute live packages and formed the basis for a phone-in about other people’s ‘unsung heroes’. The Independent & The Guardian both ran picture-led stories. New Start and The Municipal Journal also ran image-led stories with images supplied by SKV. BBC North West, Granada ITV and Channel M all covered the launch, the Bolton Evening News ran a highly supportive two-page colour feature, a front cover story and two-page feature. Manchester Evening News, BBC Radio Manchester, Key 103 and Bolton’s Tower FM also ran pieces.
Mondo Arc, the international architecture magazine, published an image led-story focussing on the artists that had designed the SOS and it was nominated as a best practice case study on axisweb – a dedicated public art online portal.
With the potential for negative coverage, SKV delivered a highly controlled and well-managed PR campaign in a very short timeframe.
By focussing on local ambassadors and emphasising the visual aspect of the story, we minimised the risks and secured extensive, positive and invaluable coverage for the client on a very low budget.
Campaign Value: AVE: £812,000, Opportunities To See: 7,116,387
“We appointed SKV at very short notice to plan and execute a very important communications campaign to support the installation and initial launch phase of the Spirit of Sport project… SKV proved they were a safe pair hands and could deliver the outputs required by the council”
Andy Ratcliff, SOS project launch leader, Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council
