Proton
Project
To raise awareness of car manufacturer Proton globally, via its participation in the FIA World Rally Championship, and promote EON as its distributor in its home market of Malaysia.
Strategy
This was two projects in one, as EON wanted to promote itself only in Malaysia, while Proton wanted to raise its awareness globally. Good Evans & Co sent a dedicated staff member to each round of the FIA World Rally Championship, to ensure information was distributed around the world in time to meet an array of deadlines. In addition to the pre-, on- and post-event press releases, issued on behalf of the Petronas EON Racing Team we created opportunities for the on-event media to write about the team, gained coverage for Proton in the regional media outlets where rallies took place (Sweden, Spain, Kenya, Italy, Greece, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Finland, Cyprus, Turkey and Japan), updated a dedicated website and co-ordinated all photographic requirements. Proton/EON’s driver, Karamjit Singh, become World Production Rally Champion in 2002, and his sporting success helped to create a huge amount of media interest around the world and demonstrated that our PR strategy worked as we were able to continue to create PR opportunities as well as respond to a large number of media enquiries.
Results
Proton gained a significant amount of media coverage globally that its one year deal, for 2002, was extended until the end of 2004 – retaining the PR services of Good Evans & Co throughout. The regular and timely press releases and rally updates send to and distributed within Malaysia created so much media interest and coverage that when Karamjit Singh arrived home, a press conference was organised and held at Kuala Lumpur airport.
Nota Bene
Good Evans & Co has designed and operated bespoke PR campaigns for other clients around the world, including SEAT Sport in the FIA World Touring Car Championship, the International Rally Challenge for series promoters SRW Events Ltd (which is owned by Eurosport), Nissan/Colin McRae on the Dakar Rally; Mitsubishi Motors North America/David Higgins in the USA Rally Championship; Natalie Barratt in the FIA World Rally Championship; Subaru/Luis Pimentel in the Azores Rally Championship and for Lancia/Astra srl on the Pikes Peak Auto Hillclimb in Colorado.
|
