National Riding Festival: meeting the media agenda
When the National Riding Festival came to Blue Zebra, the challenge was to breathe new life into a leisure activity declining in popularity and seen as elitist. Support for the sponsor (Jeep supported the Festival from 1999 – 2003) was also essential.
To succeed, we combined direct-to-consumer activity with built in stories that played squarely to the media agenda. We developed national events and roadshows, resulting in securing thousands of new riders for the sport. Trigger, the mechanical horse, provided great photo opportunities for national and regional media – and the perfect vehicle for TV which led to us teaching a Big Breakfast presenter to ride – live on air!
Enlisting the support of celebrities such as Zara Phillips, Jodie Kidd and Tara Palmer Tomkinson met the national media agenda, resulting in extensive coverage including a double-page spread in Hello and the front page of The Times.
As for our client and sponsor, we exceeded Jeep’s targets for leads and sales from the sponsorship and have averaged 55 million OTS for every annual campaign over the last five years. And we won a Chartered Institute of Public Relations Cream Award for our efforts!
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