Volvo Ocean Race: Overview, Marketing, History

12 MEDIA STATISTICS
MEDIA STATISTICS
In the run up to the 2001-02 Volvo Ocean Race, Volvo put in place a media
strategy to implement its objective of bringing the race to a wider audience
than ever before. In order to make an independent assessment of this strategy,
monitoring work was commissioned by Volvo before, during and after
the race.
This research clearly established that the media strategy achieved this
objective, with unprecedented levels of awareness of the race amongst 39%
of the population across the five key territories surveyed. The results of that
assessment are set out here.
Lessons learned from the implementation of this strategy are feeding into the
strategy for the 2005-06 race and will yield even greater results (refer to the
Media Strategy for 2005-06 on pages 36-39).
ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST SUCCESSFUL
SPORTING EVENTS
Key to fulfilling the media plan was the creation of a news-oriented media
strategy. This strategy proved highly successful in reaching a new and broader
audience through television, radio, print and website activities. With the
ongoing fragmentation of media outlets, it was essential that the race was seen
alongside other major events to build on its position as sailing’s premier ocean
race and maintain its position as one of the world’s most successful global
sporting events.
The race was run over nine months. The duration of the event provided unique
opportunities for prolonged coverage and unique challenges to sustain toplevel
coverage over this period. To succeed on a global level, the media team
had to ensure that its operation was able to perform at a local level. This meant
close coordination between the sophisticated media centre at race
headquarters and the yacht crew, but also with international and local media at
each of the nine stopover ports.