Sports Direct PR Campaign
Who are Sports Direct International Plc?
Sports Direct International Plc are leaders in sports, lifestyle, and luxury apparel retail.
What did we set ourselves to do
Create a buzz and raise awareness of Sports Direct's relaunch as Sports Direct International Plc.
Strategy for enhancing Sports Direct PR success
Announcing a change of name due to new initiatives and expansion, when you are a well-loved distinctive sports and lifestyle brand, deserves a well-executed relaunch PR campaign event that reaches a lot of diverse people.
With the right strategic brand relaunch PR campaign, existing customers will be reassured by your company's improvements, initiatives and values. Having a brand change of name relaunch PR event marks a fantastic milestone, elevation achievements and makes a positive impact on the marketplace, meeting objectives and ensuring a smooth transition.
When defining objectives in the strategy, it is good to start with 'Why?'. There is every obvious reason to have a really great brand relaunch event but in order to measure results, the detailed goals need to be built. So, ask yourself exactly what it is that will mark the success of your PR campaign for a brand relaunch.
It could be that your brand is making a comeback and having a brand refresh, an expansion, mergers, recruitment drive, new product lines, showing that you are an International brand, like our clients Sports Direct. The great founder and entrepreneur had big dreams when he was a teenager and started making it happen quickly. Within no time, he had so many stores, owned so many brands and is now taking it further and aspiring to be the international leader in sports, lifestyle and luxury apparel retail. Hence the change to the name, as part of the elevation strategy, adding International Plc to the Sports Direct brand that we all know and love.
Rebrand launches have to be celebrated really well and executed perfectly and the benefits of having a PR team to hand as an extension of your company, when any changes or announcements are made, are multiple. Since they will already know your voice, vision and ethos, they can deliver your message on-brand all across the board and you get maximum impact. With a PR team that you trust and can rely on, you can instantly tap into their services, skills, contacts and creativity and it is quite likely that you can just leave them to get on with creating the results-driven PR campaign that you desire.
Giveaways or promotional contests are always a great addition to PR campaigns as such. People love giveaways and competitions to win merchandise. For the Sports Direct PR campaign, we showcased their free giveaway of the England shirt for the World Cup. Having a launch live in the memory with something palpable and that shows an appreciation for the audience, is a great giveaway. Competitions to win products or a sponsored gift keeps your brand in people's minds.
There are many hoops to jump when expanding businesses to other countries and many different challenges, due to different methods, regulations, criteria and culture differences. It's a great idea to have a PR campaign to launch the success of that feat and transition or a party with publicity: Celebrating Success PR.
Strategies always have to be adapted accordingly, since each client and each PR campaign is bespoke. An International brand launch campaign to introduce your brand further in other countries can be a succession after the initial renaming launch and requires implementing strategies with different tactics.
Strategies always begin with objectives and results are measured against these goals. Delivering the rebrand and vision in the UK and then subsequently Internationally, keeping on-brand perception globally whilst adapting where necessary, in a timely way, will be part of the strategy development stage.
Having personal relationships in the UK and Internationally with government officials, influencers, journalists and editors is important to having press releases read and printed across the media landscape. Personal connections in PR is paramount in all instances and we made follow up calls to explain the incentive of Sports Direct PR brand renaming and relaunch campaign.
What can be achieved when you create a bespoke PR campaign
Depending on the objectives of the PR campaign for sports brand relaunch and whether that is to refresh a stale brand, to mark expansions, your goals will be achieved, if it was executed correctly. Realistic objectives should be discussed at the onset, so it is quite likely that when you look at the metrics, all objectives will be achieved and exceeded.
For Sports Direct PR campaign for the introduction of the International as part of the elevation strategy, an impressive PR Value of £456,023.05 through published articles around the activation, was achieved.
A minimum of 243 articles were published about the Sports Direct International story and these were all across the media platforms and included The Daily Mail, Mail Online, Daily Mirror, The Sun, Daily Express, Yahoo Sport, OK Magazine, Huffington Post, regional outlets and more.
