After racking up 11,734 miles over 48 days, the 2013 RBS 6 Nations Trophy Tour has come to an end…well nearly!
During this year’s tour the RBS 6 Nations trophy crammed in more activity than ever, visiting 96 events and posing next to 16 landmarks across the UK and Ireland. It checked in at 13 RBS offices, 9 local branches, 13 rugby clubs, 4 schools, 12 media houses, all 6 RBS 6 Nations stadiums on match days, 1 East London shopping centre and many more. This diverse range of activity provided multiple opportunities for RBS stakeholders including staff, clients and customers to snap, hold and even kiss the trophy, and feel that much closer to the RBS 6 Nations.
In total, over 7,770 people attended an event with the trophy and 4,136 pictures of people posing with the silverware were taken.
For 2013, we really wanted to increase the buzz around the trophy tour. As such, we encouraged people who interacted with the trophy to tweet about it using our #trophytour hashtag, which reached over 300,000 people. As well as using Twitter, this year we created a Tumblr blog, posting and uploading photos daily, to increase the reach and to enable followers to track the trophy on its travels. As you’ll see from the blog, we gave the trophy its own humorous tone and personality.
My beloved white transit van transported extra RBS branding for the trophy, and this ‘pop up gallery’ created an eye-catching area for the trophy to grab the attention of passers-by.
During the RBS 6 Nations, Ulster Bank made full use of their week with the trophy, packing in 17 events in 5 days. Each day followed a similar pattern, with an early start for a customer breakfast at a selected office, and even the Savoy Hotel one morning. Here the trophy would be joined with Ulster Bank ambassadors Alan Quinlan, John Hayes and host Adrian Logan for a Q&A session. From here the trophy would travel to local schools, hospitals, branches and finally a local rugby club for another Q&A session. During these appearances the trophy was on display with the Irish legends, and their presence made the photo opportunities even more popular. And of course, the Ulster Bank Mascot, Henry the Hippo, got involved with the trophy action.
When the trophy wasn’t scheduled in with one of the RBS divisions, we created a raft of PR activity. The trophy made appearances on ITV’s Daybreak, BBC Scotland, STV, talkSPORT, BBC’s The One Show and A Question of Sport, as well as visiting media houses in Manchester, Cardiff, London, Glasgow and Edinburgh, which drove further social media buzz by media titles and journalists.
My favourite visits were to local schools and RugbyForce clubs, where the children and club members greeted the trophy with incredible excitement and enthusiasm. It was a fantastic experience to take the trophy to true rugby fans and give them the chance to get up close and personal with it, which also secured great coverage in the regional press.
This is just a snippet of the trophy activity over the past couple of months and there is still more to come in the near future, once Wales have finished celebrating with it! Having covered over 6,500 miles of a near 12,000 mile journey, I can say that every step of the way was priceless, with the 2013 RBS 6 Nations Trophy Tour an overwhelming success by any measure.
By Luke Flower on April 4th, 2013
Tags: Employee engagement, Experiential marketing, RBS 6 Nations, Rugby, Social Media, Sponsorship Activation, Sponsorship consultants, Sport, Synergy, Synopsis, Twitter










































