Textbook PR

Wednesday ABN AMRO announced that they won’t participate in the next Volvo Ocean Race due to the fact that they had achieved all their commercial and sporting goals for the sponsor project. That’s unfortunate for VOR, but both ABN AMRO and VOR had to stop the rumours about the team’s possible next involvement in the race early. Good PR move.

But it gets better. A few hours after the ABN AMRO release, VOR sends out their new newsletter. With the kind of attention their web site has, I would guess that the number of receivers of the newsletter is substantial.

Here they make sure we don’t forget the positive spin VOR has gotten three years before the start with two official entries already: Ericsson and Peter de Ridder.

They also announce that they “also have 10 confidential preliminary entries who have paid their preliminary entry fee of GBP1,500, and there is interest from a number of other syndicates.”

This is good proactive PR, but they should have put the news out on their website to.

The next step would be to get an in depth interview with ABN AMRO head executive on the decision and the business rationale behind it. Because there are a lot of other global companies out there that are in the same position as ABN AMRO was when they took the decision to enter four years ago.

It's time to pay up

If you got lost at sea, would you like the idea of the whole international sailing community gave the ones you left behind both moral and financial support? What a stupid question. Please join the HORREVOETS FUNDRAISING.

When Hans Horrevoets lost his life in the North Atlantic earlier this year on the Volvo Ocean Race '05/06, the sailing community came forward to provide monetary support to his family through fundraising efforts such as on the Sailing Anarchy website, and most recently with an eBay auction and competition on the Volvo Ocean Race event website. On Thursday, October 12th, Team ABN Amro now announced information on how a direct donation to the family can be submitted. For those who are interested, funds can be sent directly to a new bank account that has been opened in the name of Hans' daughter Kit, who was born on September 24, 2006.

Here is the account information:
Kit Horrevoets Account number 43.97.16.152 ABN AMRO Private Banking
Vestdijk 18
Schansstraat 25 5611 CC Eindhoven The Netherlands
IBAN: NL30ABNA0439716152 Swiftcode: ABNANL2A
For questions, contact Cleonice Petry-Ferreira, Team ABN Amro:
mailto:Cleonice.Petry-Ferreira@teamabnamro.com