Bringing the Elephant to life at the Isle of Man TT!

Appointed to manage Metzeler’s video and social media creation for TT2023 and its build-up, Holeshot PR set about an ambitious programme of filming of the tyre manufacturer’s racers and characters. With some of Metzeler’s top riders also competing in the Bennetts British Superbike Championship, we utilise the opportunity of interviewing the likes of Dean Harrison, James Hillier and John McGuinness at the pre-season tests and first three BSB rounds.

Our next great opportunity came at an unseasonably sun-kissed media launch on the Isle of Man where we got to take the riders to certain areas of the 37.73 mile course to get their feelings of the Island, ‘road’ and atmosphere. Local Manxman Nathan Harrison explained how he tackled ‘The Nook’ and watched there as a kid, whilst Lee Johnston and Dean Harrison talked candidly about their shared brotherhood of riding the undeniably dangerous ‘real roads’- which proved to be prophetic as shortly afterwards Lee had a serious accident at the North West 200. Finally we asked each rider to tell us their feelings about the course with a backdrop of the famous Snaefell Mountain, which elicited passionate responses from each of these modern day gladiators.

With dozens of stories, posts and reels in our archives we started teasing these videos out with immediate, massive engagement, showing the appetite for this unique spectacle.

During the TT itself we interviewed many more riders, collected B Roll footage and crucially were supplied action content from the TT Organisers as part of our sponsorship rights. Stitching these pieces together gave us the opportunity to bring the interviewees words to life with mesmerising, almost real-time footage.

As part of our remit we also supported Metzeler’s onsite fan activation where we spoke to visitors from all over the world  (including NZ, South Africa, Argentina, Ethiopia and Guatemala!) as they entered competitions, played the new TT game ‘Ride on the Edge 3’ and took selfies on Michael Rutter’s race bike with a #metzelermoments TT backdrop.

This unit also gave us an amazing opportunity to interview fans, with one of our favourite pieces from the fortnight being this group of walkabout Aussies.

All in all we managed to obtain 8 million views across Instagram and Facebook. Check out our work over on Metzeler’s Instagram.