WWE World Tour
The challenge
WWE tours the UK twice a year, and has done for the past decade. PR is the only activity that drives event ticket sales, and must therefore make each tour fresh, interesting and relevant to all consumers, challenging perceptions that WWE is a niche sporting brand aimed solely at a male audience.
The solution
Shine created a number of tailored features to deliver standout hero broadcast coverage to challenge media and consumer perceptions of WWE. This involved a tightly managed media contact programme, agreeing five specific targets in advance with WWE that would present the opportunity for WWE to feature in broadcast programming that had never featured the brand previously. Shine then met production teams to plan how WWE could best create exclusive opportunities for feature coverage.
The results
The highly tailored approach resulted in 10 pieces of hero broadcast coverage, the highlight of which was a 13-minute feature on iconic children’s TV show Blue Peter. WWE features were also included on ITV1 Daybreak, Radio 1 Greg James, Sky News, Harry Hill’s TV Burp, Capital FM Breakfast Show, Radio 1 Regie Yates, BBC Newsround, Radio 1Xtra and Radio 1 Daniel P Carter.
Beyond the targeted approach to broadcast media, more than 100 pieces of coverage were generated, with a reach of 71m.
Shine was objectivised on driving event ticket sales and helping to ensure a minimum attendance of 75% capacity across all UK venues; ultimately the average capacity for the WWE World Tour was 81% and ticket sales increased by 40% during the campaign period. WWE saw an increase in unprompted consumer awareness of 30% and in terms of a sift in consumer perception, more than 80% of viewers polled following the tour considered WWE ‘entertainment’ rather than ‘sport’.
What the client thought...
“The broadcast coverage that Shine delivers never ceases to amaze me. From the first tour where we had hits on BBC Breakfast and ITV local news, to the most recent one where we had five minutes on Daybreak, coverage on Harry Hill’s TV Burp and countless radio hits. The team always manages to achieve the type of coverage that both impresses our colleagues in the US and has a direct impact on ticket sales.”
Julie Newton, Director, International Comms at WWE