PR
Sponsorship activation for Sheffield Mutual
Sheffield Mutual is a friendly society offering a range of financial products, including savings accounts for adults and children, ISAs, investment accounts and life insurance.
The financial services company was the headline sponsor of the 2025 Sheffield Half Marathon and appointed us to deliver sponsorship activation activity ahead of and at the event that would raise awareness of its sponsorship and increase overall brand awareness.
To do this effectively, we knew we needed a creative hook that would make the sponsorship media-worthy and appeal to people planning to watch and take part in the race. After a creative brainstorm and lots of desk research, we came up with the idea of launching the ‘Sheffield Mutual Money Academy’ on race day, a series of fun and engaging workshops and activities for young people aged four-18, all designed to help them learn about managing money.
- Campaign ideation
- PR
- Social media
- Copywriting
- Developed a creative sponsorship activation campaign idea that would generate pre-race day media coverage, raise brand awareness and drive visits to the Sheffield Mutual event stand on race day
- Created a detailed document outlining the different activities we recommended take place on the day to appeal to the two target age groups (4-10 and 11-18), which included numbers-focused games and challenges where little ones could earn and spend pretend money, and a super savers quiz for over 10s, where children could find out if they a super saver, a money maverick or a fund fritterer
- Copywrote two educational ‘how to manage your money’ leaflets to be given out to young people and parents on the day – one for under 10s and one for tweens/teens
- Drafted a press release about the brand’s sponsorship and the events happening on the day, which we sold into all regional media in Sheffield and the surrounding areas
- Created a one-month long social media plan to raise awareness of Sheffield Mutual’s race sponsorship and the Money Academy events ahead of, during and after the event.
The campaign went down a treat with the media and people attending the race. We secured post-event coverage about the Money Academy events and brand sponsorship in all key regional media, including the Sheffield Star, Rotherham Advertiser, Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post and Doncaster Free Press, and even went national when it was covered by MSN.
Race day was a huge success for the brand with large numbers of children and carers visiting the Sheffield Mutual stand to take part in the brand’s fun financial activities. Leaflets were handed out to all attendees, providing a further way to highlight the brand and its products to potential customers.