Lasting legacy of our Vitality Netball World Cup 2019 PR campaign 

Conker’s PR campaign for the Vitality Netball World Cup 2019 was a whirlwind – smashing ticket sales targets, building momentum and stacks of top tier coverage meant the project was a huge success. Such a success in fact, that we are delighted to announce that it has been shortlisted for Best Sport Campaign at the Northern Marketing Awards 2019!

Almost three months on, the results of a YouGov poll on the event have revealed some stellar statistics…

• A record breaking 112,000 tickets were sold for the event; all England games sold out completely!

• Netball received more than 8200 items of coverage, which on average reached 96.4m people and had a value of £18.22m – in addition to this, Conker’s direct coverage had a whopping online readership of 780m!

• 6.07 million Brits said that they ‘followed or attended’ the event.

• Over 900 new school registrations for our Bee Netball programme.

• 97% of respondents said they felt the Vitality Netball World Cup raised the overall profile of women’s sport in the UK.

The effect of Conker’s powerful coverage was reflected in the statistics – mini campaigns including education media and tapping into new media such as podcasts and Instagram influencer takeovers helped to engage new and niche audiences.

Joanna Adams, who held the position of CEO of England Netball during the tournament, said: “The Vitality Netball World Cup was the best sold Netball World Cup to date and we had 9900 people register their interest to volunteer at the tournament, plus extensive press coverage across the 10 days.

“It seemed as though everyone was talking about netball during that time and the buzz around Liverpool was spine-tingling. Whilst the Vitality Roses didn’t get the colour they were gunning for, they truly had the backing of the nation during every game and inspired many to have a go at the sport.”

Speaking about Conker’s campaign, Event Director Lindsay Impett said: ““Conker’s well-planned and highly creative PR campaign played a vital part in smashing the Vitality Netball World Cup’s 100,000 ticket sales threshold. The results speak for themselves with coverage across national, regional and niche media platforms. Thanks to the Vitality Netball World Cup 2019 PR campaign, netball took centre stage and has never been featured so prominently in the national media.”

Read Conker’s full case study on the campaign here, and watch this space to find out how we get on at the Northern Marketing Awards – fingers crossed!