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The Challenge
Kenton Cool is a world-renowned British mountaineer who wanted to embark on his next record attempt with a PR campaign behind him; not only to generate coverage but to gather important results for future sponsor outreach. The brief was to create a campaign document where he would own the messaging, the content and the key metrics.
The challenges stacked up. A summit attempt is only news when it happens and you can't control the summit date, the weather window or whether the climb succeeds. We needed to generate coverage ahead of summit and be ready to go at a moment's notice with plan A-to-C all lined up. And once Kenton is on the mountain the time difference and the climb itself create their own hurdles. No mid-ascent interviews, no quick approvals, none of the responsiveness a normal campaign assumes. Comms had to work around an 'absent subject'. Finally, the 20-summit record needed context to matter: a 20th ascent is extraordinary but to a news desk that has to mean something other than "Mountaineer climbs mountain again".
The Strategy
The Strategy hinged on one principle: everything that could be prepared in advance, would be - so that when Kenton summited we could move without waiting for him.
We settled on two angles, both rooted in Kenton's own passions. The changing face of Everest - one of the only people to have witnessed it first-hand over 20 years of ascents. And the Sherpa angle: his partnership with Dorjee Gyelzen Sherpa, summiting together for their joint 45th attempt (Kenton 20; Dorjee Gyelzen 25). We knew not every outlet would want the climate story; some needed something more upbeat. So we built assets for both.
Between training climbs we commissioned a photoshoot which captured a comprehensive set of images we felt the media would need, from a specialist website to a national newspaper and everything in between. We gathered images from Kenton's previous climbs too, labelling them '1st Summit, 2nd Summit, etc.,' and also created a timeline of all his ascents that the media could use in long-form op-eds if required. What's more, we captured video shorts on topics including Sherpa welfare, climate change, the impact on family life and whether there would be a 21st summit attempt if everything went to plan!
We started from our existing standing in the climbing, mountaineering and outdoor world. Well in advance of the attempt, we reached out to key media, retailers, bloggers and podcasters so that we could line up interviews ahead of the climb and get some coverage on what he intended to do. Now we just needed Kenton to summit.
The Results
Kenton went off for his summit attempt with a pocket full of strong coverage - interviews in publications like Sidetracked, Trek & Mountain and LFTO. Plus we'd teed up a run of podcasts and features that were ready to go once he summited.
As with every campaign there are curveballs along the way and this time it was the Khumbu Icefall and the potential closure of Everest for the season. We hadn't predicted the icefall, but we knew there'd be a follow-up story. So as soon as the update was issued we jumped on a quote from Kenton gleaned from his social media which was used by the international press.
The moment we had confirmation of Kenton's 20th successful summit (and we'd finished punching the air) the release went out to our pre-prepared list along with our link to the press room which was brimming with assets. We offered live interviews once he got back to basecamp with Sky TV, the BBC, ITV and other broadcast media. Published news stories focused on the 20th summit whilst longer-form pieces looked at his career, the Sherpa angle and the changing face of Everest.
Finally, the campaign stats were fed into a sponsorship deck which was prepared for Kenton ahead of his next summit. We're proud of what we've achieved together.
