Five Fabulous Sporting PR Stunts

From the Olympics and the World Cup to the Euros and Wimbledon, sporting events are often highlights in our collective national calendar. Whether we’re supporting, celebrating or commiserating, they bring people together in a shared experience and create lasting memories.

It’s therefore no surprise that marketers and brands look for ways to get involved. In this WPR Reading Room blog, managing director Jane Ainsworth offers a quick round-up of a few of our favourite sporting PR stunts.

1. HOLLYWOOD COMES TO WREXHAM

It feels like a long time ago now that we were all slightly stunned by the arrival of Hollywood glamour in north Wales.  Right back at the start of the Wrexham resurgence, we saw a brilliantly simple PR stunt grab the headlines when an impressive Hollywood-style sign appeared overnight on the side of a slag heap outside Wrexham. Timed to coincide with a visit by Wrexham football club owners (and US film stars) Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, speculation abounded on news outlets, social media and in the local area about who was responsible for the sign. Ahead of the start of the season, Vanarama, title sponsor of the National League, revealed it was behind the installation. The campaign successfully brought attention to the lower leagues of the beautiful game in a humorous stunt that really captured imaginations. 

In the years since, the Wrexham marketing machine has been seemingly unstoppable, fuelled by the star power and big brand connections that come via Ryan and Rob.  At this year’s Super Bowl, they unveiled a new ad for STōK Cold Brew Coffee (Wrexham’s stadium sponsor) featuring non other than Channing Tatum teaching Wrexham players some dance moves. It’s all a far cry from fifth-tier football but that first simple stunt by Vanarama takes some beating as great PR ideas go.

2. sNICKERS AND oWN gOAL wEDDING

It’s a theme that gives plenty of PR mileage when major tournaments take place – what do you do if your team is progressing further than you predicted and you’re supposed to be attending a wedding or, worse still, it’s your own wedding day? Reacting to research that found over 7,000 weddings in England would clash with significant Euros games, Snickers launched a competition to offer one lucky couple a special screening experience at their wedding, complete with a Snickers wedding cake and surprise video message from Saka.

3. Greene King and Scrum-ber Party

We’ve run quite a few of our own sports-related campaigns over the years so can’t resist including one on this list. With the 2019 Rugby World Cup approaching, UK fans were wondering how to make the most of watching matches that were being screened at breakfast time to account for the time difference between GMT and Japan, where the tournament was taking place. We came up with a way to help rugby fans live the dream, converting a pub into a comfy dorm so they could sleep over in their local to make sure they wouldn’t miss a minute. The quirky angle was picked up by national and regional press and resulted in almost one million video views.

4. nORwICH cITY fc / tHE sAMARITANS AND oNE mINUTE uNSILENCED

An idea which is incredibly clever in its simplicity of message and feels entirely authentic in both the point it is making and how it was delivered, Norwich City FC teamed up with The Samaritans to launch ‘One Minute Unsilenced’ ahead of World Mental Health Day in 2024.  Connecting the fact that a life is lost to suicide every 90 minutes in the UK – the length of a football match – and that a one-minute silence is often observed ahead of games to mark a loss, the campaign encouraged everyone to break the silence around mental health and speak to neighbouring fans instead.

5. tHE bRITISH hEART fOUNDATION AND eNgLAND ‘tIL i dIED

Not a PR stunt in the truest sense but a beautifully timed, powerful campaign which fully maximised the nation’s attention being on all things football-related ahead of the 2024 Euros.

The BHF’s campaign shone a spotlight on young people who lose their lives to cardiac arrest drive home the point that heart disease doesn’t only affect older people. Focusing on 12 football fans who had lost their lives, murals were created in their local areas celebrating their passion for the sport.

The clarity of the message, the quality of the execution, and the perfect timing all combined to deliver a campaign that really packed a punch.

As long as people love playing, watching and cheering on their favourite teams and athletes, marketers will find ways to connect their brands to the raft of emotional and celebratory experiences that surround it. Here’s to a summer of memorable sporting moments in Birmingham.

The author: Jane Ainsworth is managing director of WPR. She has more than 20 years’ experience in developing and delivering communications strategies for consumer brands including Dunelm, Tesco, Mothercare, Greene King, John Lewis, Bullring, Beaverbrooks and Westfield.

Article last updated: March 2025