Horse Racing PR/Awareness Campaign

Hello everyone,

It is now my third blogpost and I have actually achieved 3/4 of my internship at Immedia.  What I can say for now is that working on a part time internship together with university courses is really challenging and time must be well managed.

Last week we had to organise the annual horse racing day for a client. Actually, I found that it was a very good PR idea as horse racing being the main meeting point of the population during the weekend. Our client, a telecommunication company, contacted us in advance so as to take care of everything during the event.

Champ de Mars Race Course

Prior to that, we had a site visit with main stakeholders that would participate in the event at the MTC (Mauritius Turf Club), which included: the catering, sound technicians, florists, photograph, and the entertainment. There, my communication manager explained and detailed the timing of the event.

Our client then provided us with a huge guest list and I had to contact them so as to confirm their presence for the horse racing day which was quite exhaustive. But organising such an event is quite simple I shall say, the only difficulty is to find a good idea for the entertainment as Immedia always strive to find original ideas in that field.

This horse racing event, I would rather call it an awareness campaign to increase the brand recognition of our client. And this is not a bad idea, as I said initially that horse racing gathers  a lot of people. According to the MTC website, the aim of the founders of the Mauritius Turf Club was to reconcile the French settlers with the English administration who had conquered the island in December 1810.  They were convinced that the convivial atmosphere of horse racing would foster unity between the two communities and ensure social peace and harmony after years of fighting in the Indian Ocean.

Panoramic view inside the governor's lodge

It actually gathers about 7000 people weekly and is publicised in newspapers, magazines, radio, and televisions. It also occupies a large part of the Mauritian's weekly activities whereby people would follow it on television or radio even if they cannot attend it in live. And for our client this constitutes a useful competitive advantage in terms of public coverage as being an event occurring a whole day and thus their brand name would be heard several times. 

Hopefully everything went well during the event and our client was satisfied on the way the event have gone. For my part I have met new people, built some contacts, collected some useful phone numbers, and bet some money (beginner's luck!!). It was a new experience for me as attending my first horse racing day in my life quite a shame for a Mauritian.

Thank you for reading and do not forget to comment,

Mehdi