cottages.com: Tour of Britain Sponsorship Activation
As a legacy sponsor of the The Tour of Britain, cottages.com had a powerful platform to leverage but a challenge in owning the cycling breaks conversation.
We were tasked to activate the sponsorship in a way that felt authentic to the cycling community, drove measurable brand consideration for cottages.com during a peak booking period, and introduced cottages.com to audiences who had not previously considered it for cycling-friendly escapes.
What we achieved
Our approach centred on bringing the sponsorship to life through personal experiences.
We connected cottages.com with brand partner Ribble Cycles and professional cyclist-and-influencer Keira McVitty to create a multi-strand awareness campaign that spoke directly to engaged cycling audiences by leveraging voices they already trusted.
Working across social storytelling and targeted PR amplification, we:
- Built a creator-led content programme with Keira McVitty showcasing cottages.com stays and The Tour experience, using her authenticity and reach within the cycling community to position cottages.com as a natural companion for cycling-friendly staycations.
- Activated the Ribble Cycles partnership strategically across brand channels while leveraging their established audience to extend campaign reach and connect with a high-intent new audience via a competition.
- Developed stories from survey insights to create timely, data-backed PR hooks that gave journalists and editors a compelling reason to cover cottages.com at a time when cycling was already on the mind pre-summer.
- Integrated storytelling across channels to keep cottages.com front of mind throughout the summer booking window with audiences seeking cycling-friendly staycations.
Highlights
This integrated summer campaign kept cottages.com consistently visible across the key booking window:
- >90k engaged cycling fans reached through targeted campaign activity
- Increased brand search for cottages.com during peak summer period
- Measurable uptick in brand consideration among cycling and active target audiences
- PR hooks generated media engagement opportunities beyond the sponsorship
- Ribble Cycles partnership expanded reach to a new, highly relevant target audience