World Indoor Athletics Championships 2024
A collaboration between two Edinburgh-headquartered creative agencies, design and brand specialist Brand Oath and content production company Tanami, owned by the Cello Signal Group, has helped to deliver the winning bid campaign that secured the World Athletics Indoor Championships for Glasgow and Scotland in 2024.
World Athletics announced on Wednesday 1st December that Glasgow will host the championships following a successful bid process. The Emirates Arena will stage the biggest Indoor athletics championships in the world, five years on from holding the hugely successful European Athletics Indoor Championships in 2019.
Brand Oath, the Edinburgh-based agency with a track record of helping global cities realise their dreams of hosting major events, won a competitive tender to work with the stakeholders to develop the bid campaign strategy, brand identity and associated collateral required in the decision-making process such as the all-important ‘bid book’ and various presentation films in association with Tanami.
Julie Shaw-Binns, Director of Brand Oath, said: “This was a fantastic experience for us, we had to draw on all of our expertise in this niche area to identify the strategy shaping insights, turning those into a strong campaign positioning and narrative, and finally implement it into clear and coherent design outputs.
“One of the many things we have learnt over Covid-19 is our complete joy for major events, as sport is a universal language that allows us to share extraordinary moments together. To be without that experience for so long left a huge void that virtual events can’t replace alone.
“It was a genuine pleasure to work with EventScotland, Glasgow Life, UK Sport, UK Athletics and the Scottish Government to help secure this world class event. This one felt extra special and carried extra pressure due to the event being part of the road map for recovery for the events sector, re-enforcing Scotland’s position on the global map to continue to host major sporting events.”
Jemma Goba, Managing Partner of Tanami, added: “A signature part of the project was to deliver a 12-minute film as a substitute for what, pre pandemic, would have been an in-person presentation with the international governing body.
“It was always going to be a challenge and, as such, we took great care to ensure our story left the decision makers in no doubt of our passion and purpose. We maintained engagement through high energy, enthusiastic voices and pulled out the key messages with supporting statistics and data. We incorporated interviews with stills, archive footage and eye-catching graphics for a varied and engaging pitch.”
Rhona Corscadden, interim Head of EventScotland, said: “We are delighted to have secured the 2024 World Athletic Indoor Championships for Glasgow and Scotland. Delivering our first bid in a virtual setting was a new challenge, however, it gave us the opportunity to think outside the box and do things differently. Brand Oath and Tanami both played a pivotal role in helping us do this and on behalf of all the partners I’d like to thank them for all their hard work in helping us produce a winning bid.”