SPEEDY RETURNS TO OCHE TO HIT A SPONSORSHIP DOUBLE

A hugely successful sports sponsorship story will write itself a brand new chapter in June, when Speedy returns to the oche to sponsor the UK Open darts championship.

In sponsoring the ‘FA Cup of Darts’ for a second successive year, Speedy will be hitting a double it has been lining up some time, following a memorable venture into the sport 12 months ago.

With the tournament being screened live on Sky Sports from Thursday June 7 to Sunday June 10, the UK’s leading provider of equipment rental and support services is delighted to back in front of a global television audience.

In addition, the brand has also penned a deal to become official sponsors of the Professional Darts Corporation, resulting in additional exposure at every televised tournament on the PDC circuit.

Speedy’s group marketing director Steve McIntyre said: “Our 2011 UK Open sponsorship was one of the most memorable and rewarding projects we worked on.

“It generated millions of pounds worth of equivalent advertising value and also reached a circulation figure that we barely thought possible.

“Having all of the knowledge and experience of activating the sponsorship in 2011 means we are confident of making our 2012 partnership even more successful and memorable for everyone involved.”

Notable highlights for Speedy at the 2011 UK Open included up to 1,500 new followers on its twitter social networking page, along with 12,000 YouTube views over the course of the competition, thanks to 34 unique videos being created with players, including eventual champion James Wade.

Meanwhile, over 88,000 impressions were created on Facebook for the brand during the event, which also secured a number of headlines in a range of regional and national publications, including the Daily Mirror.

But arguably the biggest triumph of the sponsorship was Speedy’s qualifying events for the UK Open itself, which allowed amateur players of all abilities to enter one-off 15-dart challenges, with the highest scores standing a chance of gaining entry into competition outright.

Speedy is already putting a schedule together for similar events ahead of this year’s UK Open, to provisionally take place during April.

Steve added: “We had four qualifiers at our centres last year, but we will be extending that to seven this year, at venues to be decided.

“We want as many people to attend as possible and with a lot of our audience being tradesmen and professional builders and installers, we want to see them with their arrows as well.”

Barry Hearn, the Chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation, said: “We have thoroughly enjoyed our partnership with Speedy in 2011 and are delighted to be extending our relationship through both their title sponsorship of the UK Open and their associate sponsorship of our other major televised tournaments.

“They brought a new dimension to the Speedy Hire UK Open last year, both with their innovative qualifying tournaments and their online interaction with darts fans around the world, and we look forward to developing that further during 2012.”