With a blend of eSport, a hand sanitizer cause initiative and individual rider efforts, Team Ineos has sought to keep the profile of the team and its sponsors high in the absence of any action on the actual road.
A key strand of the strategy saw Team Ineos link up with Zwift to create a live eSports event to provide partner value during cycling’s pandemic-enforced shutdown.
The sport’s most successful outfit for the last decade (previously under the name of former backer Team Sky) called upon its entire 30-rider roster for a virtual ride along and real-time race on the training platform to provide a digital event for both fans and sponsors.
Team Ineos’ inaugural interactive eRide and eRace was held on 12 April in a collaboration with the virtual training platform for cycling (and running) Zwift.
The eRide segment enabled any amateur cyclist and fan on Zwift a to virtually/physically at-home join Team Ineos for a group ride. It also served as a warm-up for an intrasquad eRace broadcast across the stakeholders’ digital channels.
Produced by Sunset + Vine with race came with commentary from Rob Hatch, all 30 Team Ineos riders took part from their homes in locations across 11 countries and time trial specialist Rohan Dennis won on the virtual course.
Promoted across the social channels of the team and Zwift, the virtual event also featured the kind of rider statistics and content that would enhance traditional cycling broadcasts if only they were made available – such as power data and in-race rider interviews.
“We have such a global following, 42 million fans around the world, and we are always looking for ways to bridge the gap between the team and our fans. We are very conscious that the majority of our fans cannot engage with us directly at bike races so digital offerings and content are always at the centre of our engagement strategies,” said Dave Callan, Head of Partnerships at Team Ineos.
“Bringing in this extra layer that enables fans to ride with our athletes, albeit through a digital word, really amplifies the fan experience. Our focus will always be real life racing, but it’s clear from the levels of engagement that we have seen that virtual racing and training is a legitimate way to enhance engagement during lockdown.”
With the team seeing a general rise in social mentions related to home training, combining the participation element and the social following offered multiple touchpoints for Team Ineos and its partners and provided exposure for sponsors such as Castelli (kit) and Pinarello (bike)
The virtual risers virtually wore Ineos’ official orange training kit and fans even shared images of themselves ‘riding’ with the professionals on their social media platforms.
It also provided exposure for the team’s #HandsOn coronavirus cause initiative.
During the eRace, the pro riders changed into the more commonly seen burgundy kit with new special branding related to Hands On: the petrochemicals firm’s cause initiative to provide free hand sanitiser to European healthcare providers.
This project has already seen the team’s owner/sponsor Ineos (which also sponsors with sailing team Ineos Team UK and Ligue 1 football side Nice, as well a partnership with Mercedes F1 and mass participation through The Daily Mile and with Eliud Kipchoge’s 1:59 Challenge) deliver millions of bottles of hand sanitiser to hospitals in France, Germany and the UK as the company repurposed its manufacturing plants.
Ineos is also producing around 200 different products that are being used in drugs, testing kits, ventilators and protective clothing in the fight against coronavirus.
The Hands On project saw Ineos enlist the help of the cycling team’s racing logistics expertise to deliver the initiative.
“Governments have asked industry to help and INEOS was proud to answer the call,” said Team Ineos Team Principal Brailsford.
“Team INEOS is used to moving at speed but ten days from start to finish for four plants already was incredibly tight. We are all in this together and I am grateful to everyone in the entire INEOS family for their hands-on approach to getting the job done.”
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of Ineos, added: “Getting the hand sanitiser into production in just ten days was a huge team effort and Team INEOS, led by Sir Dave Brailsford have made a great contribution alongside the rest of the INEOS family. We knew there was a massive shortage of hand sanitisers across the UK and that speed was crucial. We believe these INEOS sanitisers will play a key part in the fight against the virus, helping protect our NHS front line staff and vulnerable people across the country.”
Outcome:
The event attracted 624,000 non-live stream video views and reached 6.1 million on all Team Ineos channels with total 211,000 engagements.
The group ride resulted in 15,530 Zwift users virtually joining the Ineos professionals.
Three groups rolled out over 30 minute intervals and the first group drew a platform record 8,340 participants.
Zwift riders joined from all around the world: the UK, USA, France, Spain and Canada were the top five countries in terms of most participants.
The Zwift race produced strong digital engagement: the live race broadcast drew a Zwift record combined audience of 273,000 across its own YouTube channels as well as Team Ineos’ YouTube and Facebook channels.
On Team Ineos’ YouTube Channel the race notched up 112,000 views and the highlights video has generated since it was posted on 13 April, while the Team’s simple Instagram promotion post on 10 April was seen 47,075 times.
Comment:
One key takeaway from Team Ineos’ approach is that eRace cycling needs to offer a quality level of production (as with all sports), a media partner which brings something to the table that the rights-holder can’t offer or replicate and uncertainty around the outcome to keep audiences engaged.
At a time when the entire sports industry is being squeezed by coronavirus and the sports hiatus, Team Ineos sought a solution to fulfil its obligations to partners and meet fans’ thirst for cycling action.
It chose to combine the coronavirus response trends of virtual initiatives, eSports and at-home participation, the team devised an event designed to encourage authentic engagement.
This is a smart tactic and part of the wider sports administrator and marketer approach as rights-holders turn to eSports and in-game tournaments as a partial solution, sports-starved fans show hunger for engagement and broadcasters have been fairly receptive as they seek to fill empty programming hours.
As a sport still almost entirely reliant on owner/sponsor funding, cycling is something of sporting outlier so the need to deliver these partners value and eyeballs during the Covid-19 sports shutdown is high.
Fans have been left with a big void to fill and sponsors don’t have the same levels of exposure or activities to engage with, so rights-holders need to be innovative.
Perhaps this will see cycling catch up with others sports which already have more established footholds in the esports space such as basketball, football and motor racing which already have major events attracting sizeable audiences and commercial deals.
Indeed, prior to Ineos’ in-team event, cycling had already seen some success with virtual races during the lockdown: the virtual version of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen on 5 April drew 613,486 viewers in Flanders alone (an audience bigger than all except seven of the 2019 WorldTour races).
While Ineo rider and 2018 Tour De Frane winner Geraint Thomas personally raised £350,000 for NHS with his own gruelling, three-day, 36-hour at-home bike ride on his turbo in his garage.
“I’ve heard so many stories about what people are doing and it made me just want to try and play a tiny, tiny part by trying to help out in a small way,” commented Thomas.
“It is easy to do a little video and say thanks and how much it means but I wanted to contribute. I needed to have some sort of challenge to get people to donate. Part of me is thinking maybe I could have just done the two 12 hours rather than three but it has been great. I just want to thank everyone who donated. Like everyone around the country I have been humbled by the hard work, bravery and professionalism of the NHS.”
With the ride split into two-hour sections, the 33-year-old encouraged anyone who wanted to join in to do so via the Zwift app and other cyclists in the virtual ride included Wales rugby legend Shane Williams, George North and Ryan Jones.
Links:
Team Ineos
https://www.facebook.com/teamineos/
https://www.instagram.com/teamineos/
https://www.youtube.com/user/TeamSkyOfficial
Zwift
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