Ollie Phillips Around the World with the Clipper Race – Part 1
October 23, 2013
Having witnessed and been a part of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race’s recent arrival and departure from Rio de Janeiro, I thought I would take the opportunity to review some of the sponsorship activation and keynote messages that they tried to echo once in port.
It is without doubt that a lot of their planning was thwarted by the late arrival of the fleet in to port. With an arrival window of 1st to 5th October originally anticipated, the main bulk of the fleet were not in to port until the 6th & 7th with some not actually mooring up until the 9th & 10th!! (Teams Switzerland, Mission Performance, Team Garmin & Invest Africa) This meant that a lot of the corporate events originally planned had to either be moved or abandoned all together.
That said, there were still a lot of corporate obligations still fulfilled. As always, OneDLL continued to portray their company as one of the shining lights of this race. Their support of their boat and constant integration of their employees in to the ideals of the race continues to impress. Each race there are two employees from within the De Lage Landen organisation that win the opportunity to sail a leg of this round the world trip. These two individuals are voted for by their fellow co-workers as recognition of the great contributions that they make to the company.
The result is a fantastic camaraderie between the employees and their employer that really demonstrates how much De Lage Landen value and support their staff worldwide.
A key focus area for the Clipper Race in this particular port was building on and cementing further the relationship they have with the city itself. Rio is a city full of opportunity at the moment. With a football World Cup, a 450th City Anniversary and an Olympic Games on its horizons in the next three years, Clipper Ventures is very keen to cement its position as a key event space building up to these events. In order to demonstrate this Clipper Ventures arranged an Olympic handover that involved its flagship Team GREAT Britain boat, the British Consulate and the Mayor of Rio. In continuation of Number 10 Downing Streets ‘Adventure is Great Britain Campaign’ that champions everything that is ‘great’ about British industry, sport, business and culture, Clipper Ventures arranged an Olympic handover involving a photo of the Team GREAT Britain boat sailing through Tower Bridge, personally signed by Boris Johnson. The aim was to further cement the relationship between London and the incumbent Olympic city itself. I have to say, the event was excellently handled with all of the media outlets in attendance.
In building on this Clipper Ventures hosted a rugby sevens coaching camp, inviting a lot of the younger generation down from the neighbouring ‘favela’ communities. The aim was to support the city of Rio’s legacy campaign by introducing the ‘future’ of the city to a sport that makes its first introduction to the Olympic format in 2016.
In other areas, Mission Performance hosted a series of workshops, encouraging some of its key clients and some of the Clipper Race skippers to assess their performance and how they can improve themselves and their team’s productivity. A series of regattas were then held out at sea to test the success of their findings and to encourage further implementation of some of their findings.
The majority of the activation was very public facing and highly visible. The fleet of 12 boats themselves make for an impressive backdrop to an already stunning landscape and Clipper Ventures ensured that all of its key sponsors were heavily ingratiated in to this colourful mosaic. Involvement and integration were some key focus areas, with an eye on further cementing the already strong relationship between the city of Rio de Janeiro and the Clipper Brand itself.
With Cape Town the next stop on this epic race, I have no doubt that a major area of focus will be the Clipper Race’s involvement with Sapinda and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Foundation. Until then, let the race continue!!
Ollie Phillips is a talented and diverse rugby player, having played Premiership, Top 14 and International rugby.
Since beginning his professional rugby career in 1999, Ollie has played for Harlequins RFC, Newcastle RFC, Gloucester RFC and Stade Francais.
Internationally, Ollie has played for England Sevens and between 2004 – 2009 and was the captain from 2008 to 2009. Since 2012 Ollie has returned to the England Sevens team.
Ollie captained England in seven of the eight World Series tournaments in 2008-09, only missing George through injury.
Following his global plaudits, Ollie was rewarded by being named World Sevens player of the Year in 2009, being only the 2nd English player to win this award.
Ollie’s 
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