Managing Director Rebecca Nicholls has an avid interest in land speed record pursuits. She carried out PR for Don Wales during his “Bluebird” electric land speed record attempts at Pendine Sands in 2000 in a voluntary role, and has since been hooked. As a firm family friend, she managed the PR for Tonia Bern-Campbell (widow of the late Donald Campbell) and her book “My Speed King” and was called upon by Don when Donald’s body and boat was discovered on Lake Coniston.

Case Study:
Rebecca joined the British Steam Car Team project in 2004. The teams brief was to stimulate interest in alternative fuels and technologies, by informing the largest audience possible. The team needed to gain support and recognition for their pioneering technology and attract and sustain sponsorship to continue with their endeavor. By far the greatest PR challenge was the unreliability of the vehicle, “one thing we could guarantee was that the car is reliably unreliable”. Team Manager Matt Candy

This was at odds with the need to generate media coverage when the car was being developed. Waiting until it was completed and running perfectly wouldn't gain the media and public support. An obstacle the PR team had to overcome. There was no advertising spend, gimmicks or products to assist the campaign. The strategy was to generate regular media presence by drip-feeding team news including its successes and failures, so that supporters could follow the journey.

As a result of the pro-active publicity a vast amount of coverage appeared both pre and post record. 1343 printed media was generated in the UK alone since April 2009.

Lynne Angel, Director, Steam Car Company Limited: “With very limited resources Eventageous PR created a loyal following of National and International media tracking the progress of the project”.

The following media coverage was achieved:
• 51 x National newspaper articles appeared in: The Mail, The Sunday Times, The Metro, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, Daily Star, The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Express, Daily Sport, The Mirror

• 105 x articles appeared in a cross section of lifestyle publications ranging from science, technology, automotive and engineering consumer magazines

• 1187 x articles appeared throughout the regional newspapers

• 20 x interviews/news items were featured on television including: BBC Breakfast TV (four times), Sky News (twice), BBC World Service (twice), Newsround, CBBC, Meridian, ITV News, BBC Inside Out (twice), Channel 4 News, Discovery Channel, CBS News, CNN, Channel 5 News, BBC 2 Documentary

• 8 x interviews/news items were featured prime time national radio stations including: Talksport, British Forces Broadcasting (three times), BBC Radio 4 Science (twice), BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 5

Internationally coverage appeared in: Russia, Croatia, Brazil, Japan, Hong Kong, USA, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Spain, Thailand, Israel, Dubai, Romania, Latvia, Poland, Taiwan, India

Eventageous PR won a national Silver CIPR Pride Award for ‘Best Use of Media Relations’ in November 2009 for the work carried out on behalf of the team.

Lynne Angel, Director and Team Manager of The Steam Car Company said “Rebecca joined the Steam Car project five years ago and her team have worked tirelessly in helping us achieve our goal of breaking the Land Speed Steam Record. Without Eventageous I can confidently say the Steam Car Project would have struggled to find the valued sponsorship a project such as this requires. To win an award such as this is a great honour and one Rebecca and her team deserve.”

For further information regarding the British Steam Car Team, please visit www.steamcar.co.uk

BBC 2 Documentary on iplayer click on this link