The
Golden Gate Challenge for
The America's Cup
Pre-Sail Publicity Campaign
The publicity, public
relations and outreach campaign objective for the Golden Gate
Challenge was to raise $10 million to design, build
and sail San Francisco’s challenge boats in the
America’s Cup trials, and to introduce the races to a new audience in Northern California.
To meet this goal,
WMG developed a comprehensive media kit, generated dozens of
pre-publicity story strategies and mounted an extensive media
outreach campaign — all of which were accomplished prior to the first boat’s
unveiling. Stories were placed in local, national and
international consumer, sports and business media, as well as
sailing and high-tech trade publications. One of the most
interesting aspects of the America’s Cup story -- especially to the Silicon Valley
audience -- was the
then-revolutionary use of high-tech computer programs in building and sailing
the boats.
Over 5 million print and
electronic media impressions were generated during the three-month
publicity period allotted for this phase of the project.
What made these results
even more remarkable was that 90% of the media coverage broke prior to the completion of the first
boat! In addition, the Golden Gate
Challenge exceeded its $10 million goal, enabling them to build three boats,
one of which raced in the finals in Australia.
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