Jacquie Golding-Duffy
British Telecommunications (BT) took up the ultimate marketing challenge when it chose to be the title sponsor of the BT Global Challenge – a 10-month journey by 14 identical 20m steel yachts around four continents.
Seen by many media observers and industry players as the most ambitious “relationship marketing” programme in the world, it brings together 200 sponsors with a net worth of 170-billion. At a time when many multinationals are pulling out of sports sponsorship because of spiralling costs, BT has decided to step up networking in South Africa with local businesses in a bid to “get everyone talking”, says BT director of global marketing Richard Slogrove.
The BT Global Challenge, says Slogrove, offers BT a valuable opportunity to build relationships outside of Britain with governments, prospective suppliers, customers and business partners.
Internationally, the Save the Children Fund and locally, the Nelson Mandela’s Children Fund are the official charities of the BT Global Challenge.
The race, which began last year September, has seen the yachts stop at the ports of Rio de Janeiro, Wellington and Sydney. Currently they are docked at Cape Town’s Victoria and Alfred Waterfront – the fourth of six planned stopovers. On May 4, the yachts will leave the Mother City and head off to Boston in the penultimate leg of the race, before returning to Southampton in July this year.
Slogrove argues that a sponsorship such as this only works if there is media discipline – when the name you are marketing is repeatedly pronounced by various people, resulting in people becoming familiar with BT and its services. “This is more than a race. It is revealing a global brand on a worldwide scale for one whole year,” he says, adding that the primary business objective of BT is to meet the telecommunications needs of its global customers.
Advertisers agree that the BT Global Challenge is the ultimate in sponsorship, but says that “it proves what big bucks can do”.
Media directors from local agencies argue that marketing on such a grand scale requires careful planning, but is “far too ambitious” a campaign for South Africa’s own Telkom.
Unlike BT which has been privatised for the last 12 years, Telkom is only now grappling with privatisation, having recently sold off a stake to Malaysian Telecom and the American SBC.
BT has had a presence in South Africa since 1994 and has developed local relations with FirstNet, a wholly owned subsidiary of First National Bank, and Telkom SA, both of which offer BT’s concert global-managed network for computers and computer systems. Grinaker Telkom is the sole distributor in South Africa for BT’s video-conferencing products and the ITS digital platform.
John Luff, head of global marketing communications, says the benefits of such a high profile sponsorship can be measured by international press coverage peaking, flagging BT and its logo and acquiring 23- million worth of advertising.
Currently, 450-million households worldwide are seeing the television coverage and have been “touched” by BT during its sponsorship.
“The BT Global Challenge provides BT with a platform to demonstrate its growing global capabilities and complements BT’s business objective of becoming the world’s leading supplier of telecommunications services,” says Slogrove, adding that BT is committed to helping the world to talk.