Sails and marketing: how global brands are reaching new audiences with Into The Blue in Cowes
Media and marketing agency Into The Blue has been working with some of the biggest names in sport and sponsorship since 2003. They’ve been based at Number One The Parade for almost ten years, providing specialist marketing and PR for names like Volvo, JP Morgan, BT, Virgin, Team Origin and Hugo Boss. They work with local businesses too, including Island based rope holdings company Spinlock, along with UKSA and the Ellen Macarthur Cancer Trust, both located on the banks of the Medina.
“Our specialism has always been sailing but we’re diversifying and we now work across a range of other sports, as well as other businesses,” says director Gail Willows. It’s a broad range of marketing and PR, and Gail has a team of 15 staff, plus additional freelance writers, videographers, hospitality staff and graphic designers. The team cover social media, event management including VIP hospitality, graphic design, sponsorship, marketing and athlete management.
“Every client is different,” Gail says. “For Volvo we’re almost a mini department of their company. We run events, create graphic design, manage their website and help to sell cars. For the RC44 Class racing yachts, it’s very much a niche communications role, providing targeted PR for high-end publications. For events like the Virgin Kitesurf Armada, World Sailing series, Luis Vutton America’s Cup in Portsmouth and the Silverstone cycling Time Trial it’s all about telling the stories of the event, being reactive and proactive. The JP Morgan Round The Island Race is about organising luxury hospitality events and also communicationing the story to regions and also the nationals. Our job is to find the angles and then get our clients in the right publications.”
Sponsorship is key and is divided into sourcing and “activation”, where clients advertising spend gets translated into personal connections, crucial for brands with high value products like cars or finance. It’s an ever changing world too, with social media providing more opportunity as well as new challenges. Video is also becoming increasingly important.
“Sport sponsorship is about aligning a brand with a sport that ticks the box for your brand,” Gail explains. “We’re always looking for new ways of doing things for our clients. We want new and unique activation for people to talk about.”
Into the Blue was founded and incorporated in 2003 by owner Jo Grindley, who is now the Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer at Land Rover BAR, the British America’s Cup team conceived by Sir Ben Ainslie. Jo had worked alongside Ben for 13 years securing all his commercial funding through three Olympic campaigns. Today Gail is director of Into the Blue, working alongside Dan Wilkinson, as the communications director. Their big clients might be global but Into The Blue is firmly based on the Island.
“Cowes is the perfect place for us to be,” Gail says. “It’s a sailing mecca but it also enables our staff to have a really good quality of life. I would argue that our output as an agency is better because we’re based here. I talk to a lot of the London agencies that we work with who are very jealous of the fact that we can walk along the beach at lunchtime. Attracting staff isn’t an issue – we’re a great agency and we look after our staff and people want to work for us. I genuinely think people love working here.
“Whether Cowes has a cachet depends on who you talk to. Some agencies are surprised we can do what we do from the Island but the clients are usually excited and once they come down and see our offices in Cowes Week at the heart of the action it’s definitely not an issue. We’re regularly in London anyway and in fact it’s probably quicker for us to get to there than it might be for people that live on the outskirts of London. Other people’s perception can still be that the Island is miles away, but it’s something that we manage!”
The last few years have been difficult for many sectors. Advertising budgets are being squeezed and the big finance companies have had to reconsider their traditional sponsorship associations. For Into The Blue, recent years have been good ones, with new opportunities.
“We actually had significant growth as a company during the recession,” Gail says. “It has been difficult for the financial services sector but other areas have moved into sponsorship because they’ve found it to be a really lucrative way of reaching a niche audience with a brand. We can track it too and we can prove to a company like Volvo that they’re now selling more cars to sailors. Other consumer brands are seeing it as a clever way of reaching their key demographics. That’s how we work.”
For Gail and her team it’s all about growing the business by widening their reach. That includes the Island too and she’s keen to work with more Island businesses and clients.
“We always try and use local suppliers when we can. We’re definitely an Island business. We do a huge amount of graphic design here and we never shout about it, particularly to Island businesses. We’d love to work with more Island based companies. We’d love to hear from local businesses that we could work with on graphic design or event management. We do a lot more than just sailing.”
