Etape Caledonia 2025
Public Relations Campaign

Cunningly Good Group’s Approach

Etape Caledonia is a mature event, founded in 2007 and running for almost 20 years. We needed to make the cycling sportive look fresh, attractive and compelling to encourage returning and new cyclists to sign up. Journalists needed original hooks, not familiar “event returns” copy. Our research and planning identified three areas most likely to create coverage:

• The new CRUK headline sponsorship
• Powerful participant and fundraising stories
• High-quality event-day images distributed early on the Sunday morning of the event showing the scale, emotion and spectacle of the event

We planned a campaign that could work across multiple media agendas: charity, health, human interest, sport, community, tourism and local pride. The new Cancer Research UK partnership gave the event a renewed purpose, while individual cyclist stories gave journalists relatable human angles.

The planning phase focused on developing case studies, regionalising stories, securing approvals with CRUK and Motiv Sports, identifying media targets and preparing for rapid event day and post-event distribution. The approach mirrored a newsroom. Find the story, capture the moment, move quickly.

The creative approach was built around making the campaign both emotionally engaging and highly usable for media. CRUK was not treated as a passive sponsor but as the campaign’s central narrative. Working alongside CRUK, we identified a strong case study for local and national media. RAF engineer Nathan Grove, in remission from bowel cancer, was cycling to raise money for the charity in memory of his father who died from cancer. A photocall of Nathan outside the CRUK shop in Pitlochry, where the event is held, gave the visual boost the story needed.

Other human interest story angles included an 85-year-old cyclist still taking on major challenges, women setting course records, and riders participating in memory of loved ones.

The biggest tactical innovation was the insistence on using an experienced press photographer on event day, rather than relying on the client’s photographers. Timing of distribution was deemed critical, and with the client’s event photographers going out on course, it wasn’t always feasible to get the images to the media in time to maximise coverage. Strong photography gave picture desks immediate, high-quality assets and directly increased the number of titles able to carry meaningful coverage, particularly in print and online galleries. This was boosted by the participation of Olympian Hailey Duff MBE who was tasked with appearing in our main press shots at the start of the event.

Activity was delivered in three phases: pre-event, event day and post-event.

Pre-event, we drafted and distributed targeted releases including a call for volunteers for the event, developed participant stories, liaised with CRUK and Motiv Sports on approvals, created media lists, pitched stories to journalists and shared the coverage of participants’ media stories in Facebook groups for the cycling community in Scotland. We also actively engaged with Visit Scotland’s PR team to ensure that the event was on their radar for any relevant pitches or opportunities to promote.

During event week, activity intensified. We coordinated broadcast opportunities, drafted and issued event releases, supplied images, followed up with national and regional journalists and managed post-event angles.

On 11 May, the event-day photography strategy came into its own. Professional images captured the scale of the start, our ‘celebrity’ Olympian Hailey Duff MBE, the beauty of Highland Perthshire, CRUK branding, rider emotion and key participant moments. These assets were distributed before 9am on the Sunday morning, enabling titles to carry stronger, more visual coverage.

Post-event, we pushed results in a supplement we had pre-organised in the Perthshire Advertiser, including course records. We also continued to follow up any human-interest stories that were identified on the day with those who were cycling for charity, particularly within participants’ local papers. This ensured we kept the campaign alive beyond the event.