From event marketing for industry giants like Redbull and Monster, aged just 23 years old, to leading a third-party logistics business, our founder Andy Gregorek has had quite the journey to where he is today.
But how do the two connect?
In this series, we give a peek behind the scenes of GorillaUK’s biggest events and how Andy has applied his experience to Gorilla3PL. Starting with the non-stop drifting action from 2011’s DiRT 3 event launch.
Project Background
Live Date: 08-04-2011
Location: Battersea Power Station, London
Brands involved: Ken Block, Codemasters, DC & Monster Energy, Ford
Agencies involved: Attention Seekers and Neon
Often credited as a pioneer of realistic rally sport racing games, Codemasters Studio’s DiRTseries has always been highly anticipated by fans; DiRT 3 was no exception. As the first in the series to introduce Ken Block’s iconic Gymkhana racing style, DiRT 3 was set to refresh the series in a big way.
It needed a marketing campaign to match.
Attention Seekers and designer Nic Tuft, employed by Codemasters, approached Andy and the team at GorillaUK to help create a launch event with one goal: to make it go viral.
With that goal in mind, GorillaUK transformed Battersea Power Station into a comprehensive driving course that allowed drivers to push the limits of racing, featuring DiRT 3’s technical director and driving legend Ken Block himself.
What was it like working on the launch?
“It being a multi-agency project meant the site was busy but they were all great people. At the time, drones were not an option, we had to set up a wire camera around the course as we built it to ensure we could film everything. The evening before the launch there was a technical issue which left the camera unusable. It always stood out how quickly the agencies came together to help us fix the issue, reassess safety and re-sign planning. Between us all, we managed to get everything sorted by 10 am the next morning with no delays to filming.”
What types of challenges did you face?
“Anyone who has worked events knows that budgets are tight. Behind any successful event, many organisations work together and need to be accounted for when planning budgets.
For both GorillaUK and Gorilla3PL, we have always focused on reusing and recycling as much as possible. At the time, I was also delivering all of Monster Energy’s European event activations, so we had a large collection of Monster-branded event assets on hand. For the DiRT 3 launch event, we used a combination of those assets and kits as well as resources we already had in the warehouse to reduce the amount we would need to outsource and overall costs to the client.”
What was your highlight from the launch?
“I think seeing it work. Between the gaming companies, brands, sports groups and planning authorities, a great deal of time and people went into what you see in those three-minute videos.
And, of course, after the launch. With 1.4M views on the official dirt3game YouTube channel alone, the project succeeded in going viral. The positive feedback from the clients, audience and press alike was great to see.”
What was your key takeaway and how do you apply it to 3PL?
“Whether it is events or fulfilment, you have to balance the needs of many different people. Each person represents a different company, brand, etc and is under pressure to get things right. There is diplomacy to it all.
The mindset of treating challenges as projects to solve instead of a problem to deal with reduces the pressure on others and puts people in a mindset for problem-solving together. That shift in mindset makes a big difference to project success.
