Well after spending the last two weeks on the P&O cruise ship Arcadia giving talks to the passengers, it is time to get back to the sponsorship trail.
Giving 8 different talks was quite a challenge, but the theatre onboard was superb, something to rival anything in the West End. Initially the numbers were quite low, with most people thinking it was a talk on how to sail. Once they realised that it was a story of how I got into sailing and what it is like to race around the world, through the Southern Ocean and round Cape Horn, interest grew rapidly as word got around the ship. From then on we were getting audiences of several hundred - more than the 'Celebrity' speaker onboard :-)
I think the rough weather video footage helped. It was great, standing on the stage while the video was playing, looking around at all the stunned faces. As the story unfolded, some were crying, others just listening in disbelief as we criss-crossed the ocean dropping off crew during the now famous 'leg 2'. (Yes that is me in the picture, on stage dwarfed by the huge central video screen and the two smaller screens either side).
I love telling the story, and it was a fantastic chance to plug the campaign to a captive audience. Many wanting to help with sponsorship, and some even giving me cash there and then. I'm expecting some more sponsors to join in when the ship returns to the UK in a couple of weeks time.
While in Antigua I bumped into Richard Shead, head of marketing for Yachting World. He was fascinated in the People's Boat story, suggesting they run an article on it, and would pass it onto one of the features writers. This campaign thrives on PR.
More blogs coming soon :-)
Alex
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