The rise of digital in professional sailing
Ocean racing, a fantastic sport that has made us dream for years with its incredible and beautiful images and stories.
The latest famous story: the rescue of Kevin Escoffier off the Cape of Good Hope by Jean Le Cam.
The rise of digital communication :
This sport has become more known for a decade thanks to its significant events such as the Vendée Globe or the Route du Rhum and improved communication.
Indeed, the emergence of digital channels such as Youtube or Instagram has allowed increasing the sport’s reach with beautiful images that can catch the public. Who has never stopped on the video of a boat flying over the water at sunset?
The Vendée Globe, the premier race for professional sailors, has a rather impressive digital maturity. Present on all the social networks, it relays 24/7 videos and photos of the mornings and two daily lives to give a briefing on the race.
This is reflected in the media results, presented by Yves Auvinet, president of the Vendée region:
- 190 countries covered the event on 5 continents
- 193,000 items in all media, i.e. + 329%.
- 269 million euros of advertising equivalent
- 4.28 billion contacts reached
- 66.7% of French people followed the Vendée Globe (vs. 52% in 2016): +14.7
- According to a Nielsen study, 95.6% of French people know about the Vendée Globe (vs. 87% in 2016): + 8.6 points.
This confirms the good 100% digital communication strategy of this queen event.
But this emergence of communication also helps promote the search for sponsors, with the presence of more than 150 partner companies for the sailors of the Vendée Globe 2020. Indeed, thanks to the images and stories of these adventurers, the brands gain to be known. Still, it is also a tool of internal cohesion to companies very coveted.
To encourage this media approach from the sponsors that the Vendée Globe knows how important it is, a quota of images and videos has been requested from each sailor under penalty of a 5,000€ fine. This has not been without making the sailors who are resistant to tradition cringe.
The rise of data collection and R&D
But digital in sailing is not only about communication. Indeed, the emergence of data collection and analysis has allowed exceptional feats in recent years.
Dozens of sensors are installed in the machines to follow the performance of the boat and the sailor in real-time. Alex Thomson, the English skipper of Hugo Boss, has even made a website with personal and boat data during the race.
Then the R&D was flourishing. From these analyses, foil’s development, wings that allow the boat to be raised above the water and increase its speed, has experienced meteoric growth and is now omnipresent on the course.
Dozens of sensors are installed in these machines to analyze the data in real-time.
Olivier de Kersauzon used to say that nowadays it is no longer sailors but engineers at the helm of boats.
In a world where investments and discoveries are exponential, what does this discipline have in store for us in the coming years?
Is the contribution of new technologies in such a traditional sport a bad thing?
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
