LONDON: Pitch PR has won the contest to promote the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games beyond Scotland.
The agency has been retained to lead international communications, including delivering a media plan, working with key partners, and promoting the organizing committee's CEO, David Grevemberg.
Pitch will also manage project work, including ticketing, athlete announcements, and promoting the Queen's Baton Relay, which will open the Games and feature all 71 competing nations.
However, PRWeek UK understands that some agencies had been put off by concerns over the ratio of remuneration to expected output for the budget.
The scope of the work was described by one sports PR agency insider as “unaligned” with the fee, which covers all costs and expenses incurred by the agency or any subcontractors it uses.
“Running a PR operation of that size is a major bit of work,” he said. “It would be a great prize to have as a client and you would take it on as something to shout about, but it would have cost our agency money to do it properly.”
Pitch PR and Glasgow 2014 declined to comment on the appointment, but a Glasgow 2014 spokesperson said that “Glasgow 2014 is primarily funded from the public purse and it is our responsibility to deliver best value for money.”
The Games will be held from July 23 to August 4, 2014, and will feature more than 6,500 athletes. Ticket sales are expected to exceed a million.
The pitch document added that awareness of the event had been boosted by the “bounce effect” of last year's Olympic and Paralympic Games.
However, it also pointed to the “challenge” of gaining media coverage in the UK's “decade of sport,” which includes the 2015 Rugby Union World Cup and 2017 World Athletics Championships.
This story originally appeared on the website of PRWeek UK, the sister publication of PRWeek at Haymarket Media.
