It’s not easy sitting behind the wheel of a $600,000 World Rally Championship car. With 14 grueling events on four continents from January to November, the World Rally Championship (WRC) takes a turbo-charged tour of the planet. More importantly, it commands the loyalty of more than nine million attendees and a viewing audience of over 4.8 billion in 186 countries. But even that level of mass-market appeal wasn’t enough for David Richards who bought International Sportsworld Communicators (ISC) in April 2000, and acquired the TV and commercial rights for the World Rally Championship. On taking control of ISC, he kick-started an unprecedented level of marketing focus around the Championship. In rapid succession, ISC negotiated key partnerships with terrestrial broadcasters to increase prime-time TV coverage; with Sony to create an official WRC game on the PlayStation 2 platform; and with its sponsorship partner, Inmarsat, to help develop aspects for future TV coverage. The Need for New Media But a critical element was still missing—a new media strategy that would further extend the brand and move the WRC closer to its audience. Richards wanted an unparalleled interactive experience for the Rally enthusiast. The website needed to engender a sense of community and loyalty among WRC fans, both old and new. Richards also wanted to deliver WRC content and applications via short messaging services and mobile devices, as well as introduce streaming video footage, online competitions, games and gambling. To create this new online brand from scratch and ensure that it accommodated his present and future requirements Richards partnered with Accenture, who then designed, built and implemented the WRC web site in just ten weeks. Now the World Rally Championship has a direct, interactive link and a scalable, flexible platform on which to build new functionality. Creating an Online Brand So how did it happen? Accenture collaborated with WRC in formulating an aggressive new media strategy to ensure consistent and seamless branding. This included helping the company exploit its alliances to support the site’s full revenue-earning potential. Furthermore the new media strategy had to serve the four key WRC audience segments and enhance their real time participation: 1) fans attending the rallies; 2) tv viewers; 3) fans playing WRC games and 4) the online community. With the business model in place, Accenture and ISC began creating the heart of the new media campaign—the flagship web site (www.wrc.com). WRC’s original site was too simple to support Richards’ ambitious goals. The new site would be managed by ISC and host traffic from partners. It would supply a virtual race experience while fostering the sense of community that defines the World Rally Championship. The site would educate and convert potential fans visiting for the first time. In addition, it would share the same graphical look and feel as the other WRC broadcast, print and gaming channels. Finally, the platform would be scalable and flexible enough to keep pace with the WRC’s projected growth. The web site design posed major functional and technical design challenges. The site would receive 95 percent of its traffic during 14 three-day events each year, but ISC needed a robust, reliable platform that could be built quickly. Accenture, selected a combination of Microsoft .NET solutions, The .NET platform allows computers to share data across the Internet, making it easier to link content and services across diverse networks, and allowing users to access the WRC site from virtually any device. Crossing the Finish Line When the site went live in January 2002, Accenture had implemented the first, most advanced version of .NET technology in Europe. WRC fans can retrieve maps of rally routes, details on the cars, and venue-specific information. They can talk with other fans in live chat sessions. They can even watch an event online and track driver positions, results and split times in near real-time. So advanced is the system that Microsoft plans to use ISC as a live client environment for piloting and testing its latest .NET products. Response to the web site launch was phenomenal. The site recorded over 1.5 million page views for an audience numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Browsers spent an average of 20 minutes per visit--unusually high for any site. The service will offer live webcasts around the clock during the event, with information updated every 15 minutes. “Accenture delivered an unequalled online experience and delivered it fast—turning innovative ideas into real results for the WRC.” Richards observes. “For the first time the World Rally Championship has a direct, interactive link to its millions of fans. These innovative new media applications are critical to transform the WRC and win the hearts and minds of enthusiasts around the world. Our ongoing partnership with Accenture means that we can exploit the platform to its fullest.” Only the Beginning Accenture is now helping ISC increase the amount of time consumers spend on the WRC site. Live audio commentary and streaming video during rally events are being incorporated, as are personalization and content management capabilities. A transaction platform on the web site will support multiple currencies and markets, multiple languages and market-specific content. Accenture will add video-on-demand and mobile Internet technologies, showing scenes from 22 small cameras fitted to each car as well as wide-angle shots from helicopter cameras. Mobile device users will be able to access news and race results, as well as location-based information. “The World Rally Championship web site was designed to offer something for everyone,” Richards explains. “It gives us the ability to enhance the spectator experience whether people are watching the Rally on TV or at the event itself. The new technologies that Accenture implemented are some of the most innovative and best I’ve seen in motorsport.” Talk to someone about this topic  To Top
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