Actress Michelle Keegan to open the 2016 Southampton Boat Show

I wonder if Hannah Mills & Saskia Clark and/or Giles Scott were ever approached. In this Olympic year, and especially with their gold medals, you'd like to think that the press would be interested. Its a shame that a Coronation Street actress is considered to have more press pulling power.
 
Never heard of her, but I guess she looks good on camera and in print. Why not get one of our olympic sailers?
 
flaming said:
I think you've missed the point that the show opening isn't for hardened sailors - that's what the show is for!

Full disclosure - I used to work in marketing for the Show organisers...

The celebrity opening the show is a tool of the PR trade designed to get more newspaper coverage. Simply put, what the organisers want is for every newspaper and media outlet in the land to run a story in their papers and on their websites on the opening day that says "BOAT SHOW OPEN!!!!"

But that obviously isn't going to happen, as most of them don't care at all, and those that do even have a sailing corespondent any more only care a very tiny amount. So the celebrity is a hook - a tool to get the papers to send photographers and reporters to the Show, and the rules of the game are that when they run their piece about the celebrity they mention that she's at the Boat Show, and that it runs until next weekend. Getting the news out there.

And sometimes there is another benefit, I remember when we had Tamara Ecclestone opening the London Show, there were well over 100 photographers from every paper I'd ever heard of and a dozen that I hadn't. She did her opening bit and then some of the photographers and reporters were subsequently seen staring open mouthed at the boats, and a good half dozen filed stories about the Show in itself because they were interested. We got more coverage, far more coverage, that mentioned the show than when a sailing celeb opened it, and some actually good pieces directly about the Show. They'd have never come if it was just "hey, come a see some sailor you've never heard of at the Boat Show."
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That explains the decline in attendances over the last few years!:encouragement:
 
She wouldn't be my choice, but at least soap has some sort of connection to water. And she's fairly easy on the eye. However, having seen her old man attempting to park his Range Rover, I hope they don't get tempted to buy something big and brash and moor it near me.
 
adwuk said:
I wonder if Hannah Mills & Saskia Clark and/or Giles Scott were ever approached. In this Olympic year, and especially with their gold medals, you'd like to think that the press would be interested. Its a shame that a Coronation Street actress is considered to have more press pulling power.
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Great for coverage in the yachtie press.

But the Show already gets good coverage in the yachtie press.

I totally agree that it's a shame, but if you want "mainstream" journos to turn up, Sailors, even gold medal winning ones, haven't got the same draw. I will however be very surprised if just about all members of the GBR Olympic sailing team aren't at the Show in some official capacity with sponsors etc over the course of the 10 days.
 
laika said:
Opening "celebrities" chosen not, I'll argue, for media interest alone but because they're attractive to a "certain sort of gentleman".
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Having been in the room whilst the discussion took place, I can state with some certainty that this is not a factor.
 
flaming said:
Having been in the room whilst the discussion took place, I can state with some certainty that this is not a factor.
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So what's the common link between Lucy Watson, Michelle Keegan and Tamar Ecclestone that made them ideal candidates to open the boat show rather than, say, some minor celeb from a boy band?

And what about the Ladies' Day thing?
 
laika said:
So what's the common link between Lucy Watson, Michelle Keegan and Tamar Ecclestone that made them ideal candidates to open the boat show rather than, say, some minor celeb from a boy band?
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You've answered your own question... highlighted... :) The other three are front page on all the tabloids on a regular basis....

The lady's day thing is just to make it more accessible is my guess.. "works at the horse racing so why not a boat show? discuss"
 
laika said:
So what's the common link between Lucy Watson, Michelle Keegan and Tamar Ecclestone that made them ideal candidates to open the boat show rather than, say, some minor celeb from a boy band?

And what about the Ladies' Day thing?
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You'd have to ask the media that, though it's certainly a fact that when we had Nick Hancock and Dawn... er... someone, can't remember her surname, they did a TV show together... open the Southampton show Nick was virtually ignored by the press photographers. They all wanted shots of Dawn, not him. He was actually cut out of one article altogether.

The ladies day thing is interesting. What you see walking around is the "Best Dressed" competition, but there's a ton of other stuff going on and certainly used to include dinghy racing, powerboat handling trials and winch grinding challenges. I was never a big fan of the best dressed bit but the stuff that's less obvious that gets women out on the water, sometimes for the first time ever, is really good.
Given that before it started the visitor statistics were heavily skewed in favour of Men, I would ask what else you would suggest to get more women involved in boating?
 
doug748 said:
Why not take a leaf out of Racing's book? I think ladies day is a grand idea as long as it is tastefully done:...l Aintree
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I once did some PR work at Aintree Ladies Day. I have never seen such a rough bunch of women wearing so little clothing and so much fake tan before. I was puzzled at first by the fact that all the equally rough-looking blokes (a number 3 cut counted as "long hair") had suits, until realisation dawned. Every Scouse bloke has a suit for court appearances.
 
flaming said:
The ladies day thing is interesting. What you see walking around is the "Best Dressed" competition
[...]
Given that before it started the visitor statistics were heavily skewed in favour of Men, I would ask what else you would suggest to get more women involved in boating?
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I suppose it depends what you want to achieve. If you cynically think you have a market of unreconstructed MCPs who want to gain "swmbo"'s buy-in then yay! frocks and hats competitions.

Otherwise I would have though role models who didn't emphasise gender role stereotypes.
 
The organisers should have got Hannah Mills, Saskia Clark and Giles Scott to open the show instead. You know people actually related to sailing and boats instead of some celeb with fake tan and tits.

No doubt Sunseeker have a massive part to play in deciding who opens the show. Keegan suits their target audience perfect!
 
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