Aiming For More PR, Land Rover Tweaks Annual Challenge

LandRoverG4Land Rover is launching the third iteration of its branded global-adventure competition, the G4 Challenge, and hoping to get more media mileage by tweaking the program with a more nation-versus-nation approach. This week, the company is co-promoting the U.S. selection competition with Nevada's Commission on Tourism.

The event this week touts both Land Rover's brand and the state of Nevada as an adventure destination. The commission created the Nevada Passage as a competition for TV to showcase several locations. Per the panel, the adventure competition is syndicated in more than 80 markets across the country, along with regional and resort cable networks. Land Rover's version is a four-day multi-stage, which lasts through Friday, centers on off-road driving, navigating, trail running, mountain biking and kayaking.

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The G4 Challenge, which the company has held every two years since 2003, involves selection events like the one in Nevada this week in some 18 countries.

Finbar McFall, VP/marketing at Irvine, Calif.-based Land Rover North America, says 20 competitors are in Nevada to participate. He says the difference between this G4 and the past two is that the final teams will represent their respective countries, with each country's team--comprising a man and woman--in next year's finals having its own Land Rover vehicle bearing a national flag and colors. In the past, each team comprised participants from different countries.

"This time made it more marketable by doing it from a national perspective, with U.S. team, French team, etc.," says McFall. He says the company chose to do the Nevada Passage tie-in because it boosted visibility. "It's advantageous for us from a marketing point of view; it lets us reach a new audience."

In the past, the company has focused much of its own coverage of the G4 Challenge, in which teams race through remote wilderness in G4 branded Land Rovers, on the Internet. For the third G4, which happens next year, the company will also bring back a retail element called G4 Trek.

"We have two forms of communications, and one of them is 3D, which is the experiential side of the brand. And it's especially important for Land Rover," says McFall. "Nothing sells these cars more than people driving them and showing off their capabilities. The spirit of adventure is at the hub of what we do, and this is the best way of showing off the adventure, and this is the best way."

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