Volvo Ocean Race: Overview, Marketing, History

60 CASE STUDIES
Assa Abloy built two boats in the UK. The boats were launched in May 2001,
named at Tower Bridge in London and then moved to Göteborg, Sweden for
testing and training.
INTERNAL EXPLOITATION
PRE-RACE EDUCATION
Anchoring and creating a sense of belonging. Prior to the start of the race, the
company wanted to create ‘a buzz’ around the sponsorship and felt that to
ensure its success, they needed to work at getting buy-in from the various
companies and their employees around the world. This activity started in
September 2000, one year ahead of the race.
A THREE-FOUR YEAR INTEGRATION EXERCISE WAS ACHIEVED IN
NINE MONTHS
Anna Bernsten says that some people doubt the statistic. “If you doubt it, let's
put it another way”, she says. “Imagine you need to conduct an exercise that
will pull together 25,000 employees in 100 companies present in 40 countries
around the world. That process will need nine major senior management
meetings, 10 two-day management seminars with 900 managers attending,
eight international exhibitions, 60 global company communiqués, 20 press
conferences, 80 press releases, and then 3,500 in-depth interviews of
management meeting participants to assess effectiveness. How long do you
think you would allow for this exercise? We did it in nine months.”
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
To assist internal communication, Assa Abloy created 90 ‘champions’ to lead
Assa Abloy Racing Team (AART) internally and increase information flow. A
focal point was a well-established and exciting intranet site. The company ran
competitions and incentive schemes.
Throughout the race, they produced 13 issues of an AART news letter, 38 AART
bulletins and nine issues of Assa Abloy News. Six stopover videos were created
explaining branding, vision and values. An attractive team merchandise
collection was produced and distributed.
EXTERNAL EXPLOITATION
BRANDING OF THE YACHT
The company had decided that they would not support the sponsorship with